


I'm Scared of Heights, But I'd Fall for You

by plvtoe



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Basically I saw fanart of Spiderman!Lance by, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Spiderman AU, Spiderman!Lance, and, and wrote this in literally 36 hours, bubleboobo, ghoststrikes, spiderman: homecoming - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 10:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11644449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plvtoe/pseuds/plvtoe
Summary: “You’re the Spider-man,” he whispers in astonishment. “From Youtube.”Lance slams the spider emblem on his chest, his suit deflating as it fell off of his shoulders. “I’m not!” he protests.Hunk makes a noise where Lance knows he’s probably thinkingas if. He points up. “You were on theceiling.”





	I'm Scared of Heights, But I'd Fall for You

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so this is dedicated to four people:  
> Mads and Trin, because I was like "I'm going to write a Spiderman!Lance AU based off of Spider-man: Homecoming and it'll be less than 10k words" and they went "bitch you wish"  
> and also the two people whos artwork inspired this fic!  
> ghoststrikes (tumblr: http://ghoststrikes.tumblr.com/ )  
> and bubleboobo (tumblr: http://bubleboobo.tumblr.com/ )  
> so check out those two because they deserve it? duh?
> 
> I'm not even kidding I'm running on like six hours of sleep in two days because I wrote this in 36 hours. I wanted it to be done by Lance's birthday and it's still his birthday in Hawaii so... happy birthday my literal sunshine.  
> On that note enjoy 21k words of Lance getting his ass kicked.

Lance McClain enjoys his powers for many reasons.

 

There’s the obvious ones: he’s seventeen and he can literally _scale walls_ . With one stretch of his hand, it’s like he’s an acrobat in the circus as he flips and flies from the Bronx to his home at eleven on a Wednesday night. The fact that, according to the lady-voice-thing that talks to him everytime he puts on his suit, he has 576 possible webshooter combinations and he’s only figured out how to do, like, _ten of them_.

 

You can also add in the fact that every time Lance is done with his patrols he gets to call _Allura_ , who is literally a _goddess_. After letting him keep the suit, she told him that he just had to call her every time he went out, and that they’d call him when they have another mission. Then she leaned forwards, arm reaching forward. Lance’s eyes had widened, returning the hug.

 

“I’m not hugging you,” the door clicked behind Lance as she opened it. “I’m opening the door for you. We’re not there yet.”

 

Lance, in an effort to hide his embarrassment from just hugging his idol when it turned out they weren’t hugging him, raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Does that mean we will?” he asked in a smooth voice, and the woman sighed.

 

“Get out of the car, Lance,” she replied in her british accent. As soon as he had stepped out with his bags, the car sped off.

 

That was three months ago.

 

On most days, when he isn’t at swim practice, he would drop his book bag off at home, change out of his clothes in an alleyway, suit up, and patrol the streets. It’s basic stuff, surely not something an _avenger_ should be doing, but Allura seemed content with what Lance did every night. It’s rare that she would actually answer his calls, but the fact that her voicemail box isn’t full from not opening his messages and she hasn’t blocked his number yet leaves a pardon for her actions.

 

Sitting on a rooftop in Queens doesn’t take long until Lance has to jump off of it, swinging to the streets. Take now, for instance, as a hooded man swerves past people on a red bicycle. There’s a person yelling behind him, a couple blocks away, and Lance laughs as he shoots a web towards an adjacent building and swings down in the path of the thief. Snagging a web inside the bike’s tires was easy enough, causing the hooded man to tumble to the concrete. Lance binds him to a telephone pole before picking the bike into the air so people could see it above the crowd.

 

“Anyone lost a bicycle?” He calls, not fully expecting an answer but a hand shoots out from the flock of pedestrians.

 

“I did!” a man pants as he squirms his way past the bodies. He’s tall, a couple inches taller than Lance with broad shoulders and a set jaw, along with a faint scar running across his nose. A relieved smile adorns his face and Lance almost laughs at his haircut because _wow_ , who did his _hair_ ? His undercut was shaved so close it seems a different color than the rest of his hair, but the real catcher is the white bangs sweeping down his forehead. Lance holds himself back from laughing. This guy looks like a _skunk_. He holds his hand out in greeting, and Lance shifts the bike to holding it with one hand to shake it. “Hi! I’m Shiro! Thank you so much for saving my bicycle!”

 

The man shakes his hand up and down ecstatically and Lance chuckles, shaking it back. Shiro continues to explain he’s a big fan after the youtube videos of Lance came out and he thought his bike was a goner because that’s all he has for transportation to work and it isn’t even his it’s his younger brothers and-

 

“Shiro!” Lance cuts him off gently. “It’s alright. Your bike is safe.” With this, he slides it from his shoulder and hands it to him. Shiro’s grin seems to grow even wider once it’s set back on the ground.

 

“I know you must have a lot to do, and I need to get to work. My shift will start soon,” Shiro explains. “Thank you so much, again.”

 

“Of course,” Lance nods, before shooting a web up to the roof of an apartment tenant. He can only give a wave to Shiro before he launches into the air, barely missing hitting a telephone pole.

 

There had been some embarassing moments like that; he once tried to stop a man from keying the door to his apartment because he thought he was breaking in. Instead, it turned out he and his girlfriend were having a fight and she locked him out. There was also the times where he got distracted while swinging, and he once slammed face-first into a toothpaste billboard.

 

Lance eventually finds himself sitting on some abandoned apartment building eating a churro, a couple of blocks away from home. He supposes he can just work on the little homework he has left when he gets home, but first he has to call Allura for the nightly update.

 

“Hey Allura,” he greets, taking a bite of his churro. “Uh, here’s your nightly update that you want. I stopped a grand theft bicycle today,” he jokes, swallowing the small piece left of his dessert. “I helped a lost old lady find her subway, she was nice. She bought me a churro.”

 

He sighs, looking down at the railroad tracks in front of him. They have long been rusted away, this part of the neighborhood being to slummy to bother with reconstructing it into a subway line. “I just-” he cuts himself off, exhaling into the warm spring air. “I feel like I could be doing _more_. I don’t know. Lemme know what you think.” With this, he ends the call, sliding it into the small pocket inside of his suit.

 

It had been nine months of being spiderman, but only three with the actual suit. It’s amazing of the difference in fighting when Lance is wearing it, compared to the shabby self-made suit with goggles that he could barely see out of.

 

Once he got back from Germany, Lance thought _this’d be it._ He’d be an avenger. He could finally do what he wanted to do.

 

But instead, Lance is here sitting on the window balcony of an abandoned building in Queens with a churro given to him by an old lady digesting in his stomach. Lance sighs, resting his elbows on his knees. He took down _Ant Man_ , for Christ’s sake, why can’t he continue doing things like that?

 

Sudden movement in his peripheral vision catches Lance’s eye, and he turns to see four figures crowding around the doors of the ATM station. In one swift move, one of them swings a brick back and smash it into the glass door. Lance grins.

 

“Finally, some action,” he mumbles, swinging down to the street. The intruders are too busy trying to smash into the ATMs inside, so Lance steps through the broken door carefully. The glass has shattered onto the floor. He leans against the wall, a smirk growing on his face. “S’up guys, got your pin number?”

 

The robbers spin around, and Lance has to hold in a laugh as he sees they’re all wearing plastic avengers masks. Allura’s iron supersuit faces him, along with Thor, Hulk, and Captain America.

 

“Woah, you’re the avengers!” He exclaims, throwing his arms up. The robbers pull out guns, cocking them. “What are you guys doin’ here?” Lance shoots out a web, knocking one gun into Thor’s face. He stumbles forwards, slamming his elbow up only for Lance to dodge.

 

“Thor,” he greets, knocking the thief to the ground. Another person comes running at him, and Lance swings up to the ceiling. “Captain, nice to see you again,” he drops his feet down, kicking them in the chest.

 

There’s a pause where nobody comes at him. Lance puts his hands on his hips. “I imagined you were all prettier in person,” he teases. Iron Woman pauses, distracted by his comments, allowing Lance to try to punch them in the face. They duck, and out of the corner of his eye Lance sees Captain America jump up, turning on his gun.

 

A blue ray shoots from it, landing on the teenager. All of Lance’s muscles go numb as he drops from the ceiling, muttering _oh god, this feels so weird_ , before getting slammed into the marble wall. The numbness stops upon contact, leaving any possibility for Lance not to feel it. He falls to the floor, but snaps his head up.

 

“What _is_ that thing?!” he rasps, voice cracking.

 

The laser gun shoots out again and Lance feels the crushing pain of being smacked between the floor and ceiling like some clapper toy that his nephew loves. He reaches out and shoots a web at a file cabinet in the corner, knocking it into Captain America. The blue shine no longer blinds him as he falls to the floor. He jumps up quickly, feeling dizzy as gets up.

 

Iron Woman, _or man_ , Lance thinks once launches against the robber’s flat chest, is pushed against the wall once he sees him reaching for the numbing gun.

 

Suddenly, a shrill sound of a gun booting up goes off behind him. That’s the only warning that Lance gets before he jumps out of the way, watching as the laser gun goes off where he just stood. The deli across the street explodes once the red beam hits it, and Lance stiffens when he remembers seeing the cashier standing at the counter just an hour ago, when he bought a candy bar at the register.

 

The mutant teenager doesn’t think as he leaps over the smashed windows, sprinting into the deli. Everything looks like it’s on fire, and he has to crawl on the walls to avoid the collapsed aisles. Minutes later, he is dragging the cashier out by the shoulders. He wheezes in Lance’s arms, and he doesn’t stop until they’re a block away.

 

By the time he looks back, the bank is empty.

 

 

Going into the alley where he had stashed his clothes for the past nine months was a bit disappointing, to say the least, because once Lance gets there he sees his bag of clothes is gone.

 

He groans in frustration. “ _Me cago en diez! El pendejo—_ ” Lance cuts himself off, kicking the wall and shrieking in pain from the impact. “ _¿Por qué necesita mi ropa? Todo lo que había en la bolsa era una puta camisa y vaqueros!_ ”

 

He sighs, resting his hands on his hips. Rolling on the balls of his feet, he realizes that it’s seven o’clock and he _really_ needs to get home.

 

It takes little time for him to get back to home; the ATM robbery was only a couple of blocks away. But considering he can’t just _waltz_ through the door, clad in the spiderman suit, he quietly crawls up the apartment complex to the third floor. The light is still on in his bedroom, just how he left it, so that means that his mother hadn’t been inside since he got home. He exhales a sigh of relief as he slowly lowers the window with his foot, crawling through the top. It’s an arduous task to make sure he can close the window as silent as he can due to his mom literally having the ears of a _bat_ . He pulls off the stuffy mask, throwing it on the floor. Lance crawls across his ceiling with careful steps before shooting out a web, closing the door with a quiet _click_.

 

He hangs down by an arm, landing on the carpet with a dull thud. He smirks, stepping back before spinning around.

 

And coming face-to-face with a gaping Hunk. Lance freezes, trying to take in the situation that _dios mio I forgot I told Hunk we should study for chemistry tonight_ and _Hunk is looking at me in my spiderman suit with no mask on and he’s sitting on my bed —_

 

His best friend’s grip on his chemistry textbooks fell to the floor with a slam.

 

“Lance? What was that?” his mother calls out from downstairs. Hunk launches up and Lance spins to the door.

 

“D’uh— _nothing!_ It’s nothing!” He shoots his gaze back to his friend.

 

“You’re the Spider-man,” he whispers in astonishment. “From Youtube.”

 

Lance slams the spider on his chest, his suit deflating as it fell off of his shoulders. “I’m not!” He protests.

 

Hunk makes a noise where Lance knows he’s probably thinking _as if_ . He points up. “You were on the _ceiling_.”

 

“I wasn— Hunk, what are you doing in my room?” Lance exclaims quietly.

 

“Your mom let me in, you said we were gonna study for the chem quiz Friday!”

 

Lance scrambles to put on a shirt and get changed out of his suit.

 

“Your mom knows?” Hunk asks, eyes still wide.

 

“No!”

 

“Then who does?!”

 

“Nobody knows!” Lance answers in a whisper-shout. He tugs a blue sweater over his head that he found on the floor. “I mean, Ms. Altea knows because she made my suit, but that’s it!”

 

Hunk wheezes. “ _Allura Altea made you that?_ ” he pauses, standing up straight. “Are you an avenger?”

 

Lance stares at him, before shrugging. “Yeah, basically.”

 

Hunk holds a hand to his chest, the other clasping onto Lance’s top bunk. He used to share this room with his brother, Toni, before he moved out to go to college.

 

Lance moves to clutch Hunk’s bicep. “You can’t tell anyone. You gotta keep it a secret.”  


His friend scoffed. “How can I _not_ tell anyone? My best friend’s Spider-man!”

 

The mutant pointed downstairs. “You know what she’s like! The second she finds out that people are trying to kill me every night she’s not gonna let me do this anymore!” His voice cracked as he spoke fast.

 

“Okay, okay: I’ll level with you,” Hunk pauses. “But I don’t think I can keep this a secret because this is the greatest thing ever to happen to me—”

 

Lance walks away from him, hands coming up to cradle his head. “I can’t believe this,” he mumbles.

  


 

It takes a lot of convincing Hunk that he’ll tell his friend everything and answer any questions in the morning, but Lance manages to get him out of his house. He walks downstairs to see his mother at the table, doing papers brought home from work.

 

“Okay, _leóncito_. I don’t feel like cooking tonight, so once I finish this page we’re going to eat at Katsuno with Jordan, Rosalyn, and Jaime,” his mother states, typing rapidly on her computer next to her.

 

“Alright,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair. “What about Alex?”

 

“Working late tonight, so it’ll be just us.” Lance winces at the thought of his brother-in-law stuck in the office _again_ for possibly the third night this week just to keep up with a giant project he’s working on. Being an architect meant that you bring in good money from your family, but the only way to get it is for long hours and late nights trying to finish them by the deadlines.

 

Within an hour they were sitting at the local Japanese restaurant, Lance chowing down his California rolls. Jordan had ordered simple ramen for herself and rice for Rosalyn and Jaime.

 

For a five year old, Rosalyn is amazingly polite. Being the older child who _begged_ for a younger sibling she easily wipes the rice from the side of Jaime’s face. Her brown hair is in tight waves across her face, wisping across her freckles and brown eyes. Her brother’s the opposite; the toddler has no freckles and is lighter-skinned than his mother and sister, instead taking after his father with blue eyes. Honestly, the only thing on Jaime that resembled his mother is the dark hair.

 

A gasp in front of Lance takes his attention as he looks to see his mom watching the television in the corner. On the screen, a newscast is playing of the ATM robbery. His mother turns around, facing her family. “If you ever see anything like that, _leóncito_ , I want you to turn and run the other way.”

  
Lance lowers his eyes to his food, not wanting to lie while looking at his mom. “ _Sí_ , mama,” he answered as she rambles on about _six blocks from us, madre de dios!_ Jordan simply nods along with their mother, scooping the sticky rice into Jaime’s mouth.

 

The waiter eventually comes up, after Lance’s mother finished her rant, and began taking empty plates. Lance glances up and sees Keith, his old partner from last year’s biology lab. At first, Keith had seemed like a loner with his _I’m-so-cool_ attitude and weirdly fitting mullet, but the version in front of Lance seemed all but. His classmate looks exhausted, with strands of hair wisping down his face and sunken eyes.

  
“Hey Keith,” Lance greets him. Purple irises snap to blue, and the korean boy stares at Lance for a moment.

 

“Do I know you?” he asks. His voice doesn’t sound mean, but the words make Lance flinch. Jordan snorts into her coffee.

 

Lance lowers his eyes, “the name’s Lance.” The expression doesn’t change on his classmate’s face. “We were bio partners last year and I’m in, like, three of your classes…”

 

Keith nods. “I remember you,” he mumbles. He sighs, pushing his bangs back. “Sorry, it’s been a rough day. My brother got mugged for his bicycle.” Lance’s mind immediately snaps to Shiro, excited and shaking his hand. He had almost seemed anxious when doing so, like when Hunk gets so nervous but happy about something he’s grinning while running to go puke.

 

“ _Dios mio_ , is he alright?” Jordan asks. Keith hums.

 

“Yeah, he’s okay. Luckily this one guy saved it for him. Spider-man? I think?” Lance squirms at the name, choosing to stuff another roll in his mouth to avoid talking. “I don’t know. He’s a big fan of the guy, so he was happy to meet him, but he was still shaken up from the whole thing so I took a double shift for him.”

 

His mother and sister continue talking with Keith for a few minutes before Keith announces he has to go and wash their empty dishes before getting ready to close up.

 

“See you in third period, Keith,” Lance calls as the boy is walking away. Keith stops, and turns his head halfway. He nods before going into the kitchen, having left the check on the table.

  


The next morning is warmer than the last couple of weeks so Lance opts to simply wear jeans and a tee-shirt, instead of the hoodies he’d been sporting since fall. Hunk and Lance walk to school, with Lance explaining how he became a mutant.

 

“You got bit by a _spider_?” Hunk gawks. “Can I get bit by a spider? Wait, nevermind, that’d hurt. Actually, it’d be worth it, did it hurt—”

 

“Hunk!” Lance interrupts his rambles. “It doesn’t matter. The spider’s dead.”

 

Hunk opens his mouth to rebut but cuts off once his eyes train on what’s ahead of them. A small gasp exhales from his mouth and Lance glances forwards.

 

Up ahead is the deli, now in ruins and surrounded by police. Yellow tape surrounds the property, and Lance can now see the real damage in the daylight. The entire front entrance is now destroyed, and it looks like he was lucky not to have it collapse on him last night with how the entire place is crumbling.

 

“You were here?” Hunk asks. Lance only nods. “You could’ve died…”

 

There a moment of depressing silence before Hunk asks another question.

 

“Do you lay eggs?”

 

“What? _No!_ ”

 

Throughout the rest of the day, his best friend asked questions. A few rare ones actually made sense to ask, like, _how did you find out you could walk on walls_ , but most were the reason Lance had a migraine by fourth period, like:

 

“Can you spit venom?” Lance looks up to see Hunk leaning over. His friend is totally ignoring the explanation up front on how to mix sodium with some sort of gas, and Lance realizes he accidently wrote _venom_ instead of _sulfate_ in his notes.

 

“No, Hunk,” he answers.

 

A couple of minutes later, he leans over again. “Can you summon an army of spiders?” This one earns an incredulous look sent the boy’s way.

 

Up ahead, their student teacher is explaining an entirely new formula, and Lance missed the beginning of it because Hunk decided to ask if he could control every spider within a fifty-foot radius. Mr. Holt is shorter than most of the students here, but makes up for the lack of physical intimidation with his quick comebacks and smart retorts. He isn’t much older than Lance, either, because apparently he was some child prodigy who graduated school two years early and decided to double major in chemistry and _education_ , of all things.

 

Mr. Holt has ashy blond hair that puffs out frizzy, with large glasses to accompany it. Apparently, he’s blind as a mole if you steal them (Lance _definitely_ did not know this because he _definitely didn’t_ move his glasses across the room as a joke, which led to their student teacher combing through every desk until he found them.)

 

(Lance also _definitely_ didn’t do that because he thought Mr. Holt was hot.)

 

“Wanna know something weird?” Hunk whispers. “Mr. Holt is Pidge’s older brother.”

 

Lance’s eyes focused in on the girl in the front, sitting next to Keith. He could easily see the resemblance, if Pidge had shorter hair instead of the long ponytail. “What, are they all just child geniuses in that family?” he asks, watching the fourteen year-old junior.

 

“That’s not the weird part,” his best friend, ever the gossip, continues. “Mr. Holt’s dating a guy named Shiro, and _guess what_? Shiro’s adopted brother is Keith Kogane. Who’s Pidge’s best friend.” Lance snorts, leaning on his hand.

 

“What a clusterfuck,” he mumbles.

 

In calculus, the questions didn’t stop.

 

“How far can you shoot your web?”

 

In P.E., they were told to sit down. The gym teacher brings out a TV stand, where everyone watches Captain America talk about the fitness tests required by state.

 

“You know him?” Hunk asks.

 

Lance smirks, leaning close to his best friend’s ear. “Yeah, we met. I stole his shield.” The _no way_ Hunk whispers a moment later makes him smile.

 

Later, Hunk is holding his feet as Lance does the situps for the fitness tests. His classmates are sprawled across the floor, some climbing the rope, others running laps, and some doing situps.

 

“Is Captain America cool, or is he like a mean old grandpa?”

 

“Can I be your headset communicator?”

 

With each question Hunk whispers, Lance gives a simple answer to each one. _I don’t know, we were kind of fighting each other the entire time. He’s from Brooklyn. No, you can’t be my headset communicator ._

 

Next to them, Pidge Holt lays in the sit up position, but instead holds a book above her head. Keith holds her feet down, but isn’t encouraging her to do the tests. Lance listens in on some of their conversation as Hunk rattles on.

 

He hears Pidge talk first. “Fuck Iron Woman, marry Black Widow, kill Thor. Easy,” the girl says, reading at the same time.

 

“What about Spider-man?” Keith asks, and Hunk’s eyes snap to Lance’s. “He’s pretty hot.”

 

Hunk’s eyes bulge, and Lance reaches up to cover his mouth before he says something stupid. Pidge moves her book to look at Keith. “No one’s ever seen the guy’s face.”

 

Keith shrugged. “I’m not saying I’d fuck him for his face.”

  
Lance feels his face heat up, making a squeaky noise in the back of his throat. Hunk slaps Lance’s hand away.

 

“You’re gay?” he whisper-shouts.

 

Lance, Pidge, and Keith all freeze. The latter looks at Hunk in surprise, mouth open slightly. “Uh…”

 

“ _Hunk!_ ” Lance scolds, slapping his friend’s head.

 

“Sorry! I’m too nosy for my own good. We don’t care though! Lance’s bi!” the last part is yelled, and Lance cringes as his classmates look towards them.

 

“Nice, Hunk,” he grumbles, lying back and covering his face. Keith seems to find his words, and Lance only cracks a finger to look through his hands at him.

 

“Uh...yeah, I am.”

 

Hunk immediately begins talking. “Well, do you have a boyfriend? ‘Cause Lance here is as lonely as a—” Hunk cuts off with a squeak as Lance stomps on his foot. His eyes snap to Keith.

 

“Don’t listen to him.”

  


 

Two days later, an exhausted Lance sits on a windowsill, several blocks from his place. It faces another building, probably an apartment complex. He’s soaking wet, probably has a cold, and his side burns from when he landed in the East river. He shivers, listening to the voicemail box for Allura.

 

“Hey, Allura!” he greets in a falsely chipper tone. “How’s your night? Oh, that’s great. Mine? Well, first I kicked it off by stumbling onto a gun trade where they were selling the same shit from the ATM robber in which you told me to _not worry about that, the higher-ups will handle it_ ,” he mocks in her british accent. “Oh! Then, I got shot at and dragged all the way to Brooklyn because my web was stuck on their van’s hubcap and they thought it was an excellent idea to start driving. And, to top it all off, some fucking bird man with wings tried flying me into the mesosphere, then _dropped me into the fucking East river!_ ”

 

Lance’s voice echoes in the narrow alley, and he sighs, scratching his chin. He has the mask pulled up so ranting could be easier. “I’m sorry for cursing, but—” he pauses, fingers drifting over his side with a wince. “You said you’d handle this, but if you don’t call back soon, I’ll take this into my own hands. Spidey out.” He clicks the red _end call_ button on his phone and turns it off, sighing.

 

Suddenly the window opens across the alley, and Lance comes face-to-face with Keith Kogane.

 

“Uh,” is all he says before sneezing into his arm.

 

“A bit loud out here, Spider-man,” Keith states with curious eyes.

 

Lance hurriedly pulls down his mask, answering in a rasp. “The one and only.”

 

Keith’s hair is pulled into a ponytail and Lance takes a few seconds of staring to realize he’s talking to him.

 

“—hurt? Why are you dripping?”

 

Lance clears his throat. “Yeah. I was kind of dropped into the East river from a couple thousand feet.”

 

Violet eyes widen in front of him. “Oh my god,” his face crumples in mild disgust. “That thing is polluted as all hell.”

 

Lance nods, leaning his head against the brick as a migraine began to settle behind his forehead. “Yeah, I think I tasted the oil spill coming back up.”

 

“You need to go to a hospital.”

 

He shook his head. “No way. My mom doesn’t know I’m an avenger, and she’d be called if I told them my name,” he slurs, already feeling like he needed to lie down.

 

Keith scrunches his eyebrows. “You still live with your mom?”

 

“I’m seventeen, mullet,” he scoffs, knowing that he’d later regret giving his age.

 

“What’s a seventeen year-old doing joining the avengers?” Keith asks, eyeing Lance warily as if he’ll fall face first into the dumpster two stories below.

 

Lance groans, and answers in a mocking voice of Allura, “technically, I am not an avenger.” He rests his hands on his stomach, careful not to graze his side. “Just got called to help out in the Captain America situation but now Allura says I need to wait until I’m older.

 

“Allura as in Allura Altea Enterprises? Like, _Iron Woman_ Allura Altea?”

 

Lance begins to answer that she’s his mentor, but cuts himself off by coughing up the river water. He flips his mask up before he leans down, spitting the water out in the alley.

 

Keith leans forward, resting his jaw in his hands. “So… If you can’t go to the hospital, why not just go home?”

 

“My mother is home already,” he sighs. “So I really don’t know what to do.”

  
There’s a pause between them as Keith’s eyes scan over Lance’s suit. “Then come inside. I’ll fix you up.”

 

He scrunches his face. “And who’s to say I can trust you?”

 

Keith shrugs. “I am.” With this, he steps back from the window, waiting for Lance. Lance stupidly steps in, grabbing the edges of the window before sliding through.

 

The second he hits solid ground he stumbles. He would’ve fallen on his face, in all of his Spider-man glory, if Keith hadn’t grabbed his arms, holding him upright.

 

“I took a first aid class last semester,” he supplies. Lance barely takes in Keith’s apartment as the boy leads him to a sofa. “I think you have a cold setting in. Sit here while I get you medicine.”

 

Lance nods, dazing in and out. The pain in his side has begun to sting, and he winces when the weight dips down in the couch next to him. He looks to Keith, sitting up, who’s holding a medicine cap full of purple liquid. His mask is still pulled up to his nose from him hacking up water, so Lance takes the cap and downs the gross liquid in one swig.

  
“Any other injuries?” Keith asks, taking the cap and setting it on the coffee table. Lance nods.

 

“I think I have some killer bruising on my side from the fall, but you can’t check that because I’d have to take my suit off,” he explains.

 

The Korean teenager raises an eyebrow. “But if you have open wounds from getting _dragged around and shot at_ , as you were yelling about in the alley, they’re gonna get infected from the polluted water. Even roadburn can get infected.”

 

Lance glares at his classmate. He hates that Keith’s right. “Well I can’t just reveal my identity to you.”

 

“So take off the suit, but leave the mask on. It’s not like I’ll recognize you on the street just from your naked torso.”

 

After a minute of silence, Lance realizes that this is the only way it could be done. “...yeah, okay,” he relents. He presses the spider on his chest and his suit deflates, sagging down as he pulls off the sleeves. Keith mutters something about getting antiseptic as Lance situates his suit. He leaves the top half resting on his lap.

 

“Lie down,” Keith orders once he enters again, a first aid kit and clear bottle in hand. Lance complies, moving to lie on his uninjured side with the comment of _I had a dream like this where a nurse told me to lie down but I can assure you it wasn’t to put antiseptic on me_.

 

Keith scoffs, and assures Lance in a low tone that if he wasn’t sick he would’ve slapped him upside the head. He watches as Keith finds the side wound and hesitantly touches it, causing Lance to wheeze in pain.

 

“Yep,” he exhales shallowly. “That’s the side I landed on. Is it bruised to all hell?”

 

There’s silence, and Lance glances up to see Keith scrunching his face at his torso.

 

“Uh, Spider-man?”

 

A grunt in reply.

 

“I mean, there’s bruising here, but I think most of your injuries are from what looks like a burn wound.” Lance launches up but crumples down in pain, and Keith gently puts him back on his side. “It’d make sense if it was grazing from bullets, because you said people were shooting at you, but this is like, a second-degree burn. Plus the polluted water infecting it.”

Lance exhales slowly. “They were laser guns. I didn’t know one had actually got me.”

 

Keith nods, and sits up. “I’m going to pour antiseptic on it first, and then see if I have burn cream in the cabinet. They never really taught us how to treat pollution-infected wounds, so I’m just going to have to trust Google on this one,” he turns away, but Lance doesn’t miss the _let’s just really hope you don’t get Trachoma_.

 

“Okay,” he mutters. “I’m gonna pour it in. It’s probably going to hurt. A lot. You can have my hand if you need something to squeeze.” A hand comes into Lance’s field of vision. He slowly takes it, intertwining their fingers.

 

“Do it,” he croaks.

 

Keith complies, and Lance feels like Keith just put a match up against his skin. He puts Keith’s hand in a death grip as the burning continues. He can feel Keith pouring more on, probably trying to cover the surrounding skin too. His teeth are gritted together, and Lance clenches his eyes shut.

 

When the burning finally stops, it’s only because something cold has replaced it. Lance opens his eyes to see Keith applying green cream onto his side one-handed, because his hand is still interlocked with Lance’s.

 

“Sorry,” Keith mumbles, eyes staying on the burn. “But that needed to be done. You can contract hundreds of diseases if we didn’t clean it out.”

 

A couple of minutes later, Keith has patched gauze around the wound, pressing down medical tape around the edges. He steps back, looking at Lance. “Are you alright?”

 

“As good as I can be,” Lance responded. Gentle hands led him to sit up, where Keith had painkillers and a bottle of water ready for Lance to swallow. He takes them easily, and his classmate prompts that he drink the entire bottle of water. His throat is parched and lips cracked, so the sudden hydration makes him feel leagues better.

 

“Don’t put the suit back on, it might hurt you more or move the bandages,” Keith orders, grabbing the leftover medical supplies from the table.

 

“If you want me to stay shirtless so you can oogle, just say that, Keith,” Lance chuckles, but notices how the boy in front of him freezes.

 

Violet eyes looked up. “I never told you my name,” he states.

 

Lance freezes, looking at Keith. He opens his mouth, wishing for some easy comeback that’ll be like _uh, yes you did_ , but instead stares at his classmate.

Eventually, he decides to go with his instinct: evade. “Yes you did.”

 

Keith slowly shakes his head. “No, I didn’t.”

 

Lance swallows. _What a fuck up_ . He leans his head face, covering his face with his hands as he lets out a long sigh. “ _Coño_ ,” he mutters.

 

“What was that?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

Silence.

 

“...do you know me?”

 

Lance hesitates, trying to think through scenarios in his head. He could say that Shiro mentioned his name when he got his bike back the other day, but that wouldn’t explain how he knew Keith was Shiro’s brother, _or_ that this was where Shiro lived. There could always be the fleeing method, but with his health state right not that wouldn’t work. Lance’s mind scrambles for some way to explain his actions, but before he could think of anything, the front door opened.

 

“Keith, I’m home!”

 

Keith’s eyes are still trained on Lance, but he replies to his brother. “In the living room. Don’t freak out,” he calls in his deep voice.

 

There’s the sound of keys being set on the kitchen table and then the familiar man walks around the corner, skunk hair and all.

 

“Oh my god.”

 

Lance turns to Shiro, and realizes with a heated face that he’s currently shirtless and Keith’s hands are on his knees. He quickly chippers up, however, and waves to the man. “Hey! It’s Shiro, right? Haven’t had your bike stolen lately, have you?”

 

Shiro grins nervously, nodding, and turns to Keith. “Uh, Keith? Care to explain why we have a superhero on our sofa? Shirtless?”

 

For once, Lance can’t find words.

 

Keith blinks. “Um, I kind of took him in. He got attacked and shot at and couldn’t go to a hospital because they’d ID him and tell his mother, who doesn’t know he’s Spider-man.”

 

“Wait, you’re a kid?” Shiro gapes.

 

“Seventeen,” Lance croaked.

 

“Oh, so you might go to Keith’s school—”

 

“Drop it, Shiro,” Keith cuts him off, picking up the medical supplies and walking out of the room. Shiro and Lance are left with stunned silence. The former walked to the sofa and sits on the opposite end of Lance, a surprised look still on his face.

 

“So he...he just fixed you up?” Shiro asks, and Lance meets his eyes.

 

“Yeah. I have a deep burn on my waist from a laser gun and then I was dropped from a couple thousand feet into the East river, so it’s kinda infected.”

  
Shiro slowly nods. “Anything else?”

 

“Uh, turns out I’m sick, too. From the water.”

 

Keith walks back into the room, looking at his brother and Lance with a confused face. “What, did someone die?”

 

Shiro clears his throat. “Only my dignity, for idolizing a seventeen year old.”

 

Lance chuckles, fiddling with the top of his suit. He pulls it upwards, moving his arms to put it on again. “I don’t like being bothersome, so I’ll get going. Thanks for taking care of me, Keith.”

 

The boy in question looks at him like he was insane, and rushes forward to catch Lance’s hands. “Quit squirming. You’ll pop the tape.”

 

Lance raises an eyebrow, which Keith probably can’t see. “I can’t exactly go swinging about Queens with only half of my suit on.”

 

“So don’t,” Keith states. He pulls the sleeves off of Lance’s arms. “Stay here for the night. You said you can’t go back home because your mom would notice, and you can’t go to a hospital. If you stay here I can check up on you and you won’t risk your identity.”

 

“Yeah, only kind of to us, though,” Shiro mutters.

 

Lance looks at the brothers in shock. “I—I can’t do that. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me already but I don’t want to be a bother-”

 

“Spider-man,” Keith interrupts him, catching Lance’s intention. “We don’t mind. I want you to stay here, because it would help no one that a superhero is wandering the streets with infected wounds and a head cold. I’ll work as best as I can around your suit, but you’re gonna need to have your bandages changed at least once tonight. It’s a friday night. Just stay here.”

 

Lance hesitates. How would sleeping here work? He can’t sleep in his suit, it’s too constrictive and would make falling asleep hard. He probably wouldn’t be able to breathe well while sleeping. So if he took off his mask, that means Shiro or Keith could see him at any time during the night and find out who he is.

 

“You can sleep in my room, for the privacy,” Keith offers.

 

Slowly, Lance nods.

 

“I’ll cook dinner. Hope you like spaghetti, Spider-man,” Shiro declares as he sits up from the couch, walking into the kitchen. Keith and Lance don’t move, instead listening to the sounds of pots being taken from cupboards and the faucet turning on.

 

Keith sits on the sofa, although closer than Shiro. There is only a couple inches between them.

 

“You gonna tell me how you knew my name?” Keith drawls.

 

“Nope,” Lance replies, popping the _p_.

 

Keith seems to leave it at that, and Lance coughs into his elbow. It sounds phlegmy, and the boy cringes at the thought of getting sick. The medicine has helped, but he still feels overly hot and dizzy. Next to him, Keith seems to be deep in thought, staring down at his hands. Lance moves to where he is facing him on the couch.

 

“Tell me about yourself, Keith,”

 

His classmate snaps out of his trance, looking at him like Lance is crazy. “Why? You won’t tell me anything about yourself.”

 

“Well that’s because I just met you _and_ I am literally a disguised hero. I have a reason,” Lance argues.

 

Keith fixes him with a pointed look before sighing. “Fine. I’m seventeen and I go to Midtown School of Science and Technology.”

 

Lance rests his jaw in his hand. “Alright. What are you good at there? Got any friends?”

 

“I specialize in physics. My best friend Katie goes there, but everyone calls her Pidge. There’s these two guys, Hunk and Lance. They’re alright. Hunk invited me and Pidge to sit with them at lunch this morning.”

 

Lance is surprised he was even mentioned in the friend category. Keith sees him as a friend? He was expecting _classmate_ or _acquaintance_ , not friend.

 

Not that he minds.

 

“And you live with Shiro, only?”

 

“Yeah. His parents adopted me when I was little, but when I turned fifteen dad was deployed to Germany. Mom wanted to come with him, but knew that I had potential at my school, so Shiro offered to take legal custody of me,” Keith answers.

 

“Is Shiro going to college?”

 

Keith nods. “Queens college. He’s a junior there, studying forensics.”

 

“That’s cool,” Lance replies. The only thing that comes to mind when he thinks of forensics is those TV shows like Bones where all of the people who work in forensics are either really weird or really brooding. He can’t see Shiro as a forensics major at all.

 

“Do I get to learn anything about you, then? It doesn’t have to be too personal.”

 

Lance leans back, thinking of things vague enough to satisfy Keith. “I come from a large family, but I’m the youngest. My favorite place in the world is Varadero Beach. I got my powers nine months ago.”

 

“How’d you get your powers?” Keith asks.

 

“Oh, you know, got bit by a radioactive spider.”

 

Keith stares at Lance as if he’d say _just kidding!_ When he didn’t, he starts laughing. Soon Lance joins in as well. Keith’s laugh isn’t unique: his is at a regular tone, he doesn’t snort, and it’s not too nasally. It’s a nice laugh, Lance concludes.

 

The two continue sharing random things about each other’s personalities. Keith’s favorite color is grey. Lance’s is blue. They’re both dog people. Keith wants to be a pilot. Lance doesn’t know what he wants to be. Keith’s good at math and Lance is good at English and Spanish.

 

“How well do you speak it?” Keith asks when Lance tells him.

 

Lance smirks. “Pretty well, I guess.” He holds back the fact that it’s his first language. There are not that many hispanic teens in this area of Queens, and even less from Cuba.

 

“When I was little, I tried learning how to speak Korean. I thought it’d make me feel closer to my bio parents, but it was really hard to learn at twelve so I gave up,” Keith admits.

 

Before Lance can ask about Keith’s bio parents, Shiro calls from the kitchen that dinner is ready. Keith insists that he’ll get Lance’s plate and bring it to him, because he’s still dizzy and exhausted. He’s drier now, though, but once the three sit down on the sofa Shiro insists that Lance take a shower later.

 

“I don’t want to intru—”

 

“Spidey, you stink,” Keith states bluntly. Lance nods with a red face, realizing that falling into a river wouldn’t exactly lead to a fragrant smell of lilies and laundry soap. After dinner, Shiro shows Lance how the shower works before leaving the room. Keith enters after him, holding a roll of saran wrap.

 

“We’re not doing that,” Lance protests.

 

“It’s the only way to protect your bandages. Hold still.”

 

So Lance stays put as he is wrapped twice around, Keith tucking the ends in before standing. “Don’t let that fall apart,” is all he says before leaving the room.

 

As Lance undresses, he notices the littering of bruises along his side. Many of them have turned into an ugly purple, yellow dots sprinkled across the surface. Keith had already changed out his bandages for the night before he went to the bathroom, but it apparently had looked worse earlier today. Lance sighs, hoping it’s better by Monday for P.E.

 

He showers quickly, mind racing on how he’s gonna get his wet hair into the suit after this, but when he gets out he finds that he won’t have to worry. Right next to his towel is an old tee-shirt and sweatpants, with a note on top.

 

_Here’s some clothes to sleep in. It’s probably not healthy to sleep in such a tight suit anyways. You can lock the door to my room. Will knock on the door around 10AM tomorrow. My room is the one directly across the hall. Shiro and I have already gone to bed by the time you read this. I also left some more painkillers in there for your migraines._

 

_—Keith_

 

Lance admires Keith’s clean, compact handwriting. Everyone in his family except for his abuela has illegible, chicken-scratch letters that take a couple minutes just to read a few sentences. Tugging on the new clothes, Lance finds that the pants stop mid-calves. They must be Keith’s.

 

Tip-toeing out into the hallway to avoid waking Keith or Shiro, Lance looks down to the left to see a white door. Once entering, he finds it looks almost _bland_. Nothing hangs on the white walls, and the only furniture is his closet, a desk, a nightstand and a twin bed in the corner. Lance walks towards the bed, sitting down. The mattress squeaks as his weight settles. On the nightstand, an alarm clock shows the time to be 10:24PM. Two pills and a water bottle also adorn it, along with a small picture frame of four people. Lance’s eyes hurt when trying to focus on the faces, and decides he’ll look at it tomorrow. He opens his phone and texts his mother, telling her that he’s staying at Hunk’s tonight because they were studying too late and by the time they finished Hunk’s mother didn’t want him out on the streets. After sending this, he texts the alibi to Hunk.

 

Taking the pills on the nightstand with a swig of the water bottle left there, the total exhaustion from the day sets in. It’s a lot to think about; the gun trade, getting dragged through numerous neighborhoods, getting dropped at airplane height into a river. He sighs, rubbing his eyes and yawning. Lance locks the door before lying on the bed, succumbing to sleep easily.

  


The next morning he wakes up to the alarm clock’s bright red letters reading _8:48 AM_. He groans, rubbing one of his eyes as he sits up. The water bottle is still on the end table, and he vouches to drink the rest in a couple of gulps. Setting it down on the table, the picture frame catches his eyes.

 

A younger Keith stands with Shiro and two adults, presumably their parents. Shiro doesn’t have the godawful skunk hair, instead his natural black all over. Keith holds a piece of paper in his hands, but Lance can’t make out what it says.

 

It takes little time for Lance to change out of Keith’s clothes and back into his suit, albeit a bit lagged because of his side. His lungs feel stuffy and his nose is dripping, but he’s otherwise unharmed. It seems Keith caught the infection at the right time.

 

Lance makes his way out to the living room to see Keith still asleep on the couch. Shiro is either at work or the same. Lance crouches down by the couch, watching his classmate sleep. Keith had taken his ponytail out, so the mess of his hair is out, full force. His mouth is slightly agape. Lance smiles, reaching a hand up to shake his shoulder.

 

“Keith,” he whispers. “ _Keiiiiith_.”

 

His eyes open slowly, and he blinks a couple times before he stares at Lance. “I totally thought yesterday was some weird dream,” he mumbles, rolling onto his back and pushing his hair out of his face.

 

“It wasn’t. You saved me ass. Thanks, for that,”

 

“No problem,” he slurs, still half-asleep. “If you ever get hurt again, you know where I live.”

 

“Thanks, Nurse Kogane.”

 

His eyes open, fixing on Lance. “So you know my last name too?”

 

“And with that, I need to get going. Thank you for helping me out,” Lance whispers. “Catch you on the flip side.”

 

As Lance crawls out the alley window, he hears the quiet mutter of _bye, Spider-man._

  


 

“So, since you failed to return my calls, I have taken this into my own hands. I went back the next morning and found a gun they accidentally left. I dismantled it and found this glowing energy core thing, which I’m guessing is how they managed to numb every muscle in my body and proceed to throw me into walls. _And then_ the same guys who tried to kill me were in my school! So I was like _let’s follow them_ and it turns out they decide to go to the school’s art room of all places and I manage to put a tracker on one guy. They went all the way to Maryland, near D.C. I think something is gonna happen there soon. I just gotta find out how to get to Maryland. Spidey out.” Lance pulls the phone away, pressing 1.

 

“ _If you would like to listen to your message, press 1. If you would like to delete your message, press 2. If you would like to send your message, press 3.”_

 

Lance hesitates, pressing the number before putting his phone but on the desk.

 

“Why’d you delete it?” Hunk asks from his bed. Lance turns to his friend.

 

“She might intervene. This is the one chance I have to show her I know what I’m doing.”

 

The larger boy nods and leans back on Lance’s pillows. “So how are you gonna get to Maryland when it’s 300 miles away?”

 

Lance sighs, dropping his head onto the wooden desk. It lands with a loud _thud_. “I don’t know, Hunk.”

  


 

“Good morning, Pidgeot!” Lance greets as he sits down at the lunch table with Hunk. Keith and Pidge sit across from them, with the latter scrunching her face.

 

“I told you to stop calling me that, Lance,” she complains.

 

Hunk cups his jaw with his hand, eyeing Pidge. “Yeah, she looks more like a Pidgey. Small and cute but can peck your eyes out.”

 

Keith laughs at Hunk’s comment, and Lance’s eyes are drawn to violet. Keith doesn’t look any less usual than he always is, with his _mullet_ and his _eyes_ and his _lips —_

 

“Do I have something on my face?” he asks, and Lance flinches, eyes darting to his food. A strangled _no_ slips from his throat. What is  _with_ him?

 

He can tell that Keith’s looking at him strangely, as if he’s wondering whether or not to question the behavior, but a groan from Pidge prevents it.

 

“I can’t believe we have to share the bus with the sweaty swim team,” she grumbles. Lance’s head shoots up.

 

“Excuse me! We are _not_ sweaty!” he protests. He looks to Hunk for backup, but his best friend laughs and unrolls his burger packaging. This was unfair, everyone but him was on the Decathalon team at the table.

 

Pidge waves her fork around in an annoyed manner. “Why does it even matter? You had to take leave from the team a month ago because of a back condition. It’s not like you’ll be coming with us.”

 

“Um, correction! I have been cleared to swim so I’m resuming practice this Wednesday, so I _am_ coming with you.”

 

Keith rolls his eyes playfully. “ _Great_.” His comment earns him a spork catapult of peas in his face.

 

Lance hadn’t actually taken leave because of a back condition, but rather because of being Spider-man. The day before he lied and claimed medical leave, there had been an apartment fire during practice. He had been simply swimming laps, unaware of the deaths and injuries occurring at the same moment. The thoughts going through the three people who didn’t make it out, thinking _where’s Spider-man?_

 

He still hasn’t forgiven himself. He was the captain of the varsity swimming team, even surpassing the seniors. He was the best backstroke swimmer in the school, competing in 50m, 100m, and relay.

 

So arriving back to all of that after blaming yourself that this had caused three deaths is difficult. Every step towards the yellow bus, three weeks after Lance began practicing individually with his coach, makes him want to run and turn back. The crowd in front of it is a mixture of black swim team jackets and yellow Decathlon blazers. His duffel bag feels like a heavy weight, even though it only holds three days worth of clothes, his swim equipment, his super suit, and the glowing energy core.

 

Lance approaches the crowd, and Rolo sneers at him. The senior was the alternate for the junior, always envious of his talent rising over seniority. Lance supposes that he was made the captain after he left.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

“I got cleared to swim again. I’m coming with you guys,” Lance declares, fixing the shoulder strap of his duffel bag.

 

The upperclassman scoffs, “no way. I’m the captain now, and that’s not happening with your back problem. You could fuck it up and be put on the bench just when we need you.” Lance flinches back. It is obvious the boy would no longer be hiding his disdain against him any longer. “You can’t just drop us then stroll up, suddenly better and expect everyone to welcome you-”

 

Lance is saved when the familiar redhead mustache appears in view as Coran steps off the bus. “Hey, welcome back Lance! Your back feeling good today?” Lance nods, and their coach turns to Rolo. “Rolo, you’re back to first alternate for backstroke. You can swim two hundred meters, if you want. Lance has been practicing individually with me so I could keep an eye on his back, and he seems fine. He’s the official captain again, too.”

 

The senior’s eyes widen. “What?”

 

“He’s taking your place,” Pidge calls from the middle of the crowd, suffocating even in her XS blazer.

 

Someone in the back complains about getting on the road, which causes the students to file onto the bus. Coran goes to sit next to Mrs. Dreaker, the Decathlon advisor.

 

“Now, since we had to double up with the bus, please have two to a seat!”

 

Pidge grips onto Hunk’s arm. “Hey, sit with me. I want to tell you about the new hydroxinator I invented. You’ll love it.” Hunk nods enthusiastically, and the two go up the bus stairs. Lance locks eyes with Keith’s.

 

“Seat buddies?” he asks.

 

Most of the Decathlon students are in the front, practicing trial questions. The swim team members crowd into the back, earbuds in so they can sleep without the incessant ringing of bells every time a student answers a question.

 

As they head down the aisle, Lance cranes his neck so he can look back to Keith. “You want to sit in the front so you can study?”

 

His friend shakes his head with a snort. “Nah, I’d rather talk to you.” Lance feels his face heat up and quickly snaps his head forward. The duo sit near the back, Keith on the inside and Lance on the outside.

 

They’re an odd pair: Keith in his large Decathlon blazer, as gold as the trophy both teams plan on taking home, and Lance in his swim jacket, squeaky when you scratched the material.

 

“I’ll admit, I only joined the Decathlon club so my brother Shiro’d be pleased that I’m actually doing something other than working at the restaurant.”

 

“I love swimming; I’ve been doing it since I was nine. I just have been crazy busy and I guess the back problems caught up with me because I hadn’t been taking care of myself,” Lance lies about the last part, and feels a strike of guilt stab through him.

 

The two continue talking about their interests and Lance sometimes has to act like he doesn’t already know some of the things Keith tells him. Once they leave New York, Lance receives a phone call. He turns on his phone to see the location is from NYC.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hello, Mr. McClain,” a deep voice greeted. “I’m Thace, from Allura Altea Enterprises. We see you have left New York?”

 

“ _Coño_ ,” Lance curses quietly. They must have put a tracker on his suit. “I’m going to the swim team regionals, in D.C. It’s no big deal.”

 

“It’s my _job_ to determine if it’s no big deal, Mr. McClain,” Thace responds in an annoyed voice. He pauses. “...it sounds like no big deal but just know that I am watching you, Lance.” Before the teenager can reply, Thace ends the call.

 

“Who was that?” Keith asks. Lance turns towards him, putting his phone in his pocket.

 

“My sister, Jordan. She thought the regionals were next weekend.”

 

The bus whizzes past cars on the highway, doing a speed that Lance wasn’t sure is legal. “Oh, that’s cool. Is she your only sibling?”

 

Lance laughs. “No way. I come from a big family.”

 

“Tell me about them.”

 

The swimmer’s face heats up looking at Keith, who has such an interested expression on that it makes his stomach do somersaults.

 

“Well, I’m Cuban. My abuela and abuelo still live in Cuba. My dad died in the battle of New York eight years ago, so I mostly grew up with my four siblings and mom. I’m the youngest of five: there’s Diego, who’s 28 and works in Brooklyn at a mechanics shop, and Jordan, who’s 26 and a teacher. She’s married to a pretty cool guy named Alex and they have two kids together, Rosalyn and Jaime. Rosalyn is five and Jaime’s three. Then there’s Teresa, who’s 22 and works as a flight attendant for Continental airlines. Lastly, I have a brother named Toni, who’s twenty and studies engineering at Tuft’s on a partial ride. He and I look exactly the same.”

 

Lance realizes he’s rambling and turns to apologize, but is greeted with a small smile on Keith’s face.

 

“I like it when you talk about your family,” is all he whispers.

 

Lance feels like he could explode.

  


When they arrive to D.C., Lance feels jittery. The bus reaches the hotel and the students are tasked with dividing up their rooms into groups of four. By the time Lance enters the lobby, he’s already grouped with Hunk and Andrew, a breaststroke swimmer. Lance scans the crowd to find the familiar mullet before walking up and leaning his elbow on Keith’s shoulder.

 

“We got room for one more. Wanna join?” he asks. Keith nods, picking up his suitcase. The four get the key to their room and place their suitcases inside.

 

There’s two queen beds, enough for everyone to have their personal space. Except for Lance, who at this point is used to Hunk’s sleep cuddling he doesn’t even mind anymore. Keith and Andrew vouch for getting some lunch, but Lance wants to do something before the swim meet.

 

“Uh, me and Hunk have to look for my phone charger. We’ll catch up. Keith, you should come watch us swim this afternoon,” he suggests.

 

“Alright, sounds good.” With this, both of the boys leave the hotel room and Hunk is left with Lance.

“Boot up your computer,” Lance orders, opening his duffel bag to pull out his super suit. Luckily, it’s easy to figure out where the tracker would be on his suit, so opening up the spider on his chest is quick. Finding some tweezers from the cabinet in the bathroom, Lance finds the tracker and pulls it out, placing it on the lamp.

 

“Why are you removing your tracker from your Spider-man suit, Lance?” Hunk asks.

 

“Allura might intervene this weekend if she finds out what I’m doing,” he answers simply.

 

“So you’re lying to Iron Woman now?”

 

Lance scoffs, fixing Hunk with a look before getting back to putting his suit back together. “I’m not _lying_. She just doesn’t see what I can do yet.” He closes the compartment, and folds the suit up to be put into his duffel bag.

 

“Woah, there’s a ton of subsystems on here,” Hunk states, and Lance looks at his computer screen to see line of code. “But they’re all disabled by the training wheels protocol.” His voice cracks slightly at the end, trying to keep himself from laughing.

 

“Turn it off.”

 

Hunk raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, they’re probably blocked for a reason.”

 

Lance groans, jumping up onto the bed. “I don’t need training wheels! I’m sick of Allura treating me like I’m a kid!”

 

“You are a kid.”

 

“Yeah, a kid who can stop a bus with his bare hands!”

 

“Lance, I just don’t think this is a great idea…” Hunk trails off. “What if this is illegal?”

 

“But this is my chance to prove myself,” Lance claims, jumping off the bed and looking at the screen again.

 

“I really don’t think this is a good idea,” Hunk repeats. Lance leans close to his ear.

 

“C’mon. You’d be my headset communicator. My guy-in-the-chair.”

 

His best friend stares at him with an expressionless face, intent on resisting to Lance’s charms. “Don’t do that.”

 

“Hunk. Please?”

 

His friend sighs, and a couple of seconds later the training wheels protocol is turned off. Lance lets out a whoop as his suit glows blue, the gears inside whirring as new tech is installed.

  


By the time Lance has to leave to get ready for his meet, Keith, Pidge, and Hunk are waiting for him out at the lobby. He’s already wearing his uniform; long yellow trunks and the black swim jacket. Everyone gets onto the bus by 3PM, and Lance’s leg is jumping up and down by the time they leave the parking lot.

 

Hunk presses a hand onto his shoulder. “Lance, it’ll be alright,” he assures. Lance nods, only half-listening. The bus ride, sadly enough, only lasts a half an hour with the rush hour traffic so before he knows it Lance is standing on the steps leading to the Wilson Aquatic center.

 

“Yeah, I don’t think I can do this,” he mumbles, and proceeds to get smacked on the head by Pidge.

 

“Yes you can. If we can do a shitty Decathlon you can surely swim a couple laps faster than some other guys.”

 

Lance shoves his hands into his swim jacket, faking a smile. “Of course, Pidgeot.”

 

Backstroke 50M is first up. Lance only has three minutes to warm up on land and then 1 warm up lap in the water. Both go insanely quickly and he’s standing at the edge of the pool with his fellow competitors in no time. He shakily exhales, pulling on his goggles. Looking up, he can see Hunk in the stands, with the green of Pidge’s jacket shining out next to him. On the other side, he faintly recognizes a mullet.

 

“ _Swimmers: take your marks_ ,” the intercom booms, and Lance shakes his hands out as he gets into the water. He places his hands on the backstroke bars and plants his feet on the wall.

 

The following three beeps counting down to zero are always the most tense. This is where he can accidently go early, disqualifying himself, go too late and ruin his race, or land the timing just right and take gold.

 

He assures himself he will not do the first, because Pidge will never let him live that down.

 

The first beep rings out. Lance flinches, leaning in towards the wall.

 

Second.

 

Third—

 

He flings himself backwards, pushing off the wall with vigor as he submerges in the water. Lance begins kicking and moving his arms, feeling his body float up to the surface. _Breathe_ , _Lance_ , he thought, gasping like a fish. His arms thrust out aside him, fingers pointed. He counts every stroke, trying to see when he’ll hit the wall.

 

_Sixteen, Seventeen—_

 

His fingers tap something solid and he plants his palm across the tile, springing up before he can hit his head. The stands are cheering, and Lance rips off his goggles to see his rank on the board.

 

_Peter Manama — 4_

_Lance McClain — 1_

_Stephen Jones — 7_

 

The rest of the names show up, but Lance is already climbing out of the pool. Coran comes up and slaps him on the back, handing him a gatorade as Lance slows his breathing. Backstroke 100m wouldn’t occur for another twenty minutes, as the other strokes have to do their 50m beforehand. He decides to walk around the pool to see his friends.

 

Hunk jumps up the moment he sees him coming. “There’s my gold medal-winning best friend!”

 

“Nice one, Lance,” Pidge quips, all three filing out of the stands to go talk to him on the floor. Keith nods his head.

 

“Good job. Didn’t expect anything less,” he congratulates, but pauses. “Um, where’s that scar from? It looks new.”

 

Lance tenses, looking down to the burn on his waist. Since then, the bruises have fully healed and the burn has scabbed over, no longer needing a bandage. The tissue is pink and raw.

 

“Uh, it’s from about six months ago,” he lies, looking up to face Keith. “It kind of brings back bad memories, so I’d rather not talk about it.”

 

“Oh, sorry,” he apologizes, but Lance waves him off. Lance squirms when he sees the boy narrowing his eyes at the scar.

 

“Trivial matters. Hunk, were any babes swooning over me in the stands?” He quickly amends, smirking at his best friend. Hunk rolls his eyes in response, but does talk about how a couple of senior girls came to watch. Lance ignores Pidge’s comment of _that’s because their boyfriends are on the team, Hunk_.

 

The 100m comes, and Lance attempts the same thing. He’s better at long distance than short, but Coran always pushes him to work on speed rather than stamina. In the first turn he plants his feet on the tile wrong, and ends up tilted in his lane. He fixes it easily before surfacing, working twice as hard to make up for the mistake.

 

This time, Lance doesn’t feel for the wall, focusing on counting his breaths. Because of this, he basically rams cranium-first into the pool tiles.

 

The cheers of his friends and classmates are faded as he looks at the scoreboard.

 

_Lance McClain — 1_

 

He breathes a sigh of relief, but chokes when he sees the time.

 

 _0:52_.

 

“You shattered the school record!” Coran screams above him. His coach helps him out of the water, hugging him before allowing his teammates to see him.

  
The following minutes proceed to be several hard slaps across his back, leaving stinging red marks as his teammates congratulated him. Even Rolo, with the permanent scowl on his face, tells him a stiff _congratulations_ before getting ready for the 400m.

 

The relay isn’t for another hour, so Lance heads to the bleachers to sit with his friends.

 

“Okay, I said outdo yourself, but I didn’t mean break the school record by twelve seconds,” Keith says, grin on his face. Lance thinks this is possibly the first time Keith has ever grinned just because of him. He doesn’t realize he’s staring until Pidge yells _take a picture, it’ll last longer!_ in his eardrum.

 

The relay gets third, but that’s alright. Later in the nights, Pidge insists that they celebrate by raiding the minibar in the hotel lounge. They’re standing in the dark, watching as the little fourteen year-old gremlin broke into a locked candy bar. Within minutes, she leans but with an excited squeal. “Candy for all!” she quietly announced.

 

The group sat in the dark, munching on the candy. Lance glances at the time. 10PM. He looks over to Hunk, before yawning loudly.

 

“Okay, I’m pooped. I’m gonna head to bed early,” he states, passing by his friends. Pidge teases him for being ‘weak’ while Hunk and Keith tell him they’ll be up in an hour or so.

 

Lance presses his hand on Hunk’s shoulder, leaning down to his ear. “Keep the glowy thing in your pocket. It’s evidence.”

 

His best friend turns to him. “Stay safe,” he whispers. Lance nods before running up to his room. In minutes he has his suit slipped on and his pulls his mask down. The gears come whirring to life, and Lance looks down to see completely new stats fill his screen.

 

 _“Good evening, Lance,”_ the suit speaks in a female voice.

 

“Uh— hello?” he replies, climbing to the roof of the hotel.

 

_“Congratulations on completing your rigorous training wheels protocol. You’ve gained access to your suit’s full capabilities.”_

 

“Thanks…” Lance mutters, feeling a stab of guilt go through him.

 

 _“So where would you like to take me tonight?”_ she asks.

 

“I put a tracker on someone,” Lance responds. “He’s a bad guy,” he adds, looking over the Washington skyline.

 

Suddenly, a bird’s eye view of D.C. pixelates on his screen, putting a pin of the hotel. A red band travels down the streets into a route path as she talks. _“Tracker located. Plotting best intercept.”_ The route is completed, and Lance leaps off the roof.

 

“Okay, well as long as I make it back for the Decathlon, it’s fine!” he whoops, swinging through the streets of D.C.

 

_“One hundred meters from target.”_

 

“Oh, wow. Way closer than I thought. That’s nice.”

 

Lance comes up to a gas station, planning to pass it until the computer voice speaks again. _“Three individuals located.”_

 

Lance swings to the top of the gas pump roof, muttering about how lame it was that their secret hideout is a gas station. He glances down and sees a van in the parking lot.

 

“Hey suit, what are they doing?” he asks, leaning forward.

 

_“Do you want to hear what they’re saying?”_

 

Lance chuckles quietly in amazement. “You can do that? Yes!”

 

A heat vision turns on in his suit, and he sees three men in the van. They all seem to be waiting, not doing much but talking.

 

“—can’t believe they’re still cleaning up that Gettysburg mess,” one speaks.

 

“Whatever. They keep making messes, we keep gettin’ rich.” Lance scrunches his face. _Are these guys part of a sanitation crew or something?_

 

The man in the back tapped the other’s shoulders. “Target inbound,” he states, and the driver keys the ignition.

 

“Woah, this is a heist,” Lance whispers. “I’m gonna get closer.”

 

_“Would you like to turn on advanced combat mode?”_

 

He scoffs. “Uh, _duh_.”

 

 _“Activating: instant kill.”_ Lance sputters, stumbling back on the roof.

 

“No no no no—I don’t want to _kill_ anybody!” he whispers.

 

_“Deactivating: instant kill.”_

 

Lance jumps off the roof, shooting out a web towards the gas station sign. Fully expecting to reach it, his web instead falls into a large clump on the ground. And Lance lands on the pavement.

 

He groans, sitting up and shooting them off again. This time, the webs spurt out sporadically. “What the _crow_?” Lance exclaims.

 

_“Rapid fire. You have 527 possible web shooter combinations. Here, I’ll pick a new one for you.”_

 

“Thanks,” he sighs. Gears click for a few seconds then Lance fires it off again. He blinks and the entire gas pump is covered in webs. “What was _that_?”

 

_“Pager webs.”_

 

“I don’t want these webs!”

 

 _“You seem to be very unfamiliar with your web shooter settings. Would you like to run a refresher course?”_ the suit asks kindly.

 

“No,” Lance grumbles. The van starts moving, and he has the suit select an accurate web type before following.

 

It is going to be a long night.

  


Several hours later, Lance wakes up inside a dark room. Jumping up, he looks around. The suit turns on night vision for him. He’s surrounded by empty crates.

 

He groans, his head hurting. “What happened?”

 

_“It seems you have a mild concussion. The Vulture overpowered you and trapped you in this box. My sensors cannot locate where you are exactly. The walls are overriding me.”_

 

He sighs, the images coming back to him. Just when he thought he had caught that bird man, his webs decided to turn to _slingshot_ and it got him trapped inside that truck. “So he’s calling himself the Vulture, now?”

 

The suit’s voice answers with a short _yes_ before turning off. Lance looks around, finding the door.

 

“Okay, let’s fight our way out,” he whispers to himself, before running at the door and kicking it open. He tumbles to the ground and shoots up into a fighting stance, taking in his surroundings. “What the crow?” he mumbles. He seems to be in a giant storage house, surrounded by stories of truck crates.

 

_“My sensors have located where you are. You are in the most secure place on the eastern seaboard, the Damage Controlled Storage Vault.”_

 

Lance curses. “Seriously?”

 

 _“You will most likely be trapped until morning.”_ Lance heaves a large sigh, asking whatever God there is for a freaking _break_.

 

What feels like hours pass, and Lance hasn’t done anything productive but give the suit lady a name: Karen. He also finds out that he has wings, and eventually takes the time to figure out all of the different web combinations. This is how Lance sits, 37 minutes in of being trapped in there, lying on a crate on his back.

 

“Should I tell Keith I’m Spider-man?” he asks somberly.

 

 _“Who is Keith?”_ Karen replies.

 

“Who’s Keith? Keith is—Just this…amazing guy. He goes to my school. I think I really like him,” Lance admits. “But it’d be weird. _Hey..I’m...I’m Spider-man._ ”

 

_“Why would that be weird?”_

 

“Well, he’s met both Lance and Spider-man. He’s probably expecting someone way cooler than me like Allura and he’d just be...disappointed.”

 

Karen takes a moment to respond this time. _“Well, if I was Keith, I wouldn’t be disappointed.”_

 

“Thanks, Karen.” He sits up. “I can’t wait til morning. I need to get out of here.” He drops down from the crate, walking over to his bag. He starts rummaging through his items when he spots a purple hue at the bottom. He reaches in and finds a purple glowy thing, just like the one he and Hunk have.

 

“Oh hey, it’s a purple glowy energy thing. Wonder how that got in there.”

 

_“That purple glowy energy thing is an explosive Chitar energy core.”_

 

Lance stumbles back, dropping it. “Woah woah woah—you mean we’ve been carrying around a _bomb_?” he yelps.

 

_“It requires radiation to transform it to an explosive state.”_

 

Lance’s mind switches to Hunk, and he hurriedly grabs his phone to call him. _Call failed_. No service. “Damn it!” he yells, throwing his phone in his bag. He takes a notepad and pen from inside and slings it over his shoulder. Shooting a web towards the door, he ricochets to the top. There’s a pin box in the upper right corner, so he swings over.

 

“Karen you gotta tell me the pin code,” he pants, breaking open the case and letting it fall to the floor.

 

_“I’m sorry Lance, but not even I know it.”_

 

Lance sighs, uncapping the pen. “Then we’ll have to try every number sequence with four digits.”

 

247 agonizing tries later, Lance puts in _0247_ and the light glows green. “ _Madre de dios_ ,” he whispers, watching the door slide open with a groan. He shoots a web at the arch, swinging through with a gleeful cry.

 

He doesn’t pay attention to the complex he’s in as he sneaks out. Instead, he hops on the nearest truck heading out and hitchhiking through. Once on the highway, he asks Karen for directions.

 

“Karen, you have to get me to the Decathlon as soon as possible.”

 

 _“Sure. Where is it?_ ”

 

“Across the street from the Washington monument,” he answers. Karen pulls up her GPS route as Lance continues calling Hunk, who doesn’t answer. He must be in the Decathlon by now. For the next half hour he swings from car to car to get there, and by the time he reached the capitol building he was panting. He tries calling his friend again.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hunk, you’re alive!” Lance screeches, climbing onto the roof of a tour bus.

 

“Lance, where are you? Are you okay?” Hunk’s voice sounds worried, and the background noise of people talking almost drown his voice out.

 

“Hunk, where’s the glowy thing?”

 

“Don’t worry man, it’s in my backpack going through the x-ray right now. We’re at the Washington monument.”

 

Lance freezes. The radiation from the x-ray would set off the bomb. “No—no, listen, Hunk the glowy thing is danger—”

 

“I have to go through the security check. Pidge, take the phone—” Lance jumps off the tour bus, reaching the reflection pool. He starts sprinting down the path.

 

“Lance?” the familiar voice of Pidge rings through, sounding slightly irritated.

 

“Pidge—”

 

“Where were you this morning? We won and you didn’t even see it. I’d be mad but I’m more worried about you. What’s been going on with you lately?”

 

“Pidge, I have to talk to Hunk. It’s really important!” he pants. He passes tourists with ease, still holding the phone to his ear.

 

The sudden sounds of a failed call beep in Lance’s ear. He pulls it away to see _connection lost_. “Oh no,” he wheezes, sprinting faster.

 

When he reaches the monument, he sees he’s too late. Bricks are crumbling from the top and loud security alarms begin wailing. Tourists run away from the monument, but some stay, looking up at the top. “No no no no—Karen, what’s going on up there?!”

 

 _“The core has detonated and caused severe structural damage to the elevator.”_ Lance feels his heart restart when she gives him an x-ray feed of the inside of the elevator, showing moving bodies.

 

Someone yanks on his shoulder, and Lance spins around. “Keith,” he gapes.

 

“Pidge and Hunk are up there!” he yells over the sirens, pointing to the elevator.

 

“Why aren’t you?”

 

“I’m fucking terrified of heights!” he replies, voice cracking near the end. “What’s going on?”

 

Lance turns and sprints towards the brick, choosing not to answer Keith. Without hesitating, he launches up, clinging to the sandstone wall. He moves his arms upwards, scaling every foot as fast as he can.

 

 _“Estimating ten minutes before catastrophic damage,”_ Karen supplies.

 

Lance begins leaping up the wall to gain more distance.

 

About fifty feet later: _“Safety systems are completely failing. The occupants are in imminent mortal danger.”_

 

“I get it, Karen!” Lance snaps. He’s past the tree line in a matter of seconds, now halfway up the monument. His chest feels like it’s going to explode with the amount of strain put on his lungs. Looking down, he can only see specks of people.

 

_“You now have 135 seconds until catastrophic failure.”_

 

Lance throws his head up. “ _What_? Why?” he screams.

 

 _“Unexpected motion has caused deterioration to escalate,”_ she explains as an x-ray feed of his classmates climbing out of the elevator shows up.

 

“How do I get in?” Lance asks. He knows there’s a top floor in this thing, but he barely sees any way for entrance. He can hear the faint sound of helicopters in the distance.

 

 _“Activating: Reconnaissance Drone.”_ Suddenly, the spider on his chest comes to life, stepping out of it’s casing. It flies upwards, and Lance only has a glimpse of it before it flies out of sight. _“Locating optimal entry points. Proceed to southwest window.”_ Karen shows him which side it’s on, and Lance begins climbing the tower again.

 

Finally reaching the tip, Lance finds the window and kicks at it. “Why isn’t it breaking?”

 

_“In order to break the glass you’ll have to create more momentum.”_

 

Lance looks up, shooting a web into the horizontal lightning rod coils. Then, climbing down, he jumps outwards and kicks at the window as if he was a descending climber. Peeking through, he sees the glass has cracked.

 

 _“This is an aircraft of the law. Identify yourself immediately,_ ” Lance turns to see a helicopter approaching. It gets close to the monument, and he watches as the doors are opened and a man aims a gun.

 

“I’m Spider-man, and people are stuck in there!” he screams over the blades.

 

_“Return to the ground, immediately! Stand down!”_

 

Lance looks back at the window, seeing people inside. _I need more momentum but I can’t with the helicopter so near_ , he thinks bitterly. An idea pops into his head. _Jump around it_.

 

Above him was the very tip of the tower, and Lance begins scaling again. He reaches the tip, facing away from the police.

 

_“This is your last chance!”_

 

He sighs. “Oh, I’m going to die,” he admits, before launching himself backwards. For a moment, it feels like he’s diving into the water, upside-down for backstroke. But then he hears the helicopter blades under him and stretches out his arms, wings folding out. He twists onto his stomach, and dives downwards past the police.

 

Lance shoots out a web at the bottom bar of the helicopter, swinging through and smashing the window open. He barely as time to think as he slides into the monument, hearing the elevator shaft breaking. He slides to the elevator entrance and webs are shooting out of his hands before he can think, feeling the weight of the carriage.

 

“Pager web!” Lance yells at Karen before adding more. He places his feet on either side of the arch, feeling the tugging stop.

 

There’s a moment of silence before Lance throws his head back in relief, arms shaking. “We did it,” he mumbles.

 

Then the door frame broke, and he’s sent crashing onto the floor of the falling elevator. He spins to his back, taking in the shocked faces of his friends and classmates before shooting webs through the ceiling hole, gripping to the infrastructure. He feels his weight spring upwards as he’s flipping onto the ceiling in an upside-down squat.

 

He also comes face-to-face with Pidge, Hunk, and Rolo’s shocked faces.

 

“Uh, hey,” he greets. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, I got you.”

 

Slowly, Lance pulls upwards on the string, gripping it tightly as the elevator ascended. He knew they reached the top floor when his classmates scramble out.

 

“Alright, this is your stop,” he wheezes, feeling the strain on his body. Pidge is the only one left on the cabby. She moves towards the door, but the sudden creaking of the roof made both of them freeze. Looking up, Lance watches as the roof is crumbling. He turns to see Pidge reaching for Coran’s hand—

 

—but then the roof breaks and she’s airborne. Pidge screams as the floor drops beneath her, and Lance sticks his feet to the web before reaching for her hand. She misses grabbing him by a second, but a web shot out and grabbed her wrist.

 

Lance pulls the web, bringing her up. “You’re okay, Pidgeot,” he whispers, mostly to assure himself that she was okay. “You’re okay.” He clasps her hand and lifts her throat the doors, into the arms of Hunk.

 

Pidge turns around, her face in a look of surprise. Lance feels a twist in his gut, his entire body tensing as she opens her mouth.

 

“Uh—”

 

Lance’s web breaks and the mutant teenager goes tumbling down the shaft.

  


 

By the time everyone is airlifted from the top of the monument, Lance is on the ground in his regular clothes. Most of them are put in ambulances to go check out, so Keith and Lance sit on a bench waiting for Hunk and Pidge. Most of the tourists by now had left, only those who knew the victims or were part of the law enforcement and paramedics staying. It’s been twenty minutes and Keith hasn’t said anything.

 

Until now.

 

He’s staring at the ground, hair covering his eyes. His entire posture reminds Lance of a scared animal: curled in on itself and eyes withdrawn. “Where were you?”

 

Lance doesn’t answer, instead watching the paramedics by the ambulances.

 

“You weren’t in the hotel room all night,” Keith states. “You didn’t show at the Decathlon. Why?”

 

Lance, for once, is at a loss for words. “I—… I can’t tell you.”

 

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

 

“Both.”

 

The other boy snaps his head up, face scrunched up. His eyes are glossy, on the verge of tears. “Why not?”

 

Lance only stares, so Keith reels back and shoves him. His hands connect with Lance’s chest roughly, but the brunette barely bristles. “Do you realize how fucking scared I was? Our friends were dying up there, Lance. You weren’t there and you won’t even say _why_. If they had died, I would be the only one left out of all of them!”

 

“Keith—”

 

“No,” Keith spits. “Don’t. Don’t talk to me until you can stop fucking lying. Friends trust each other, and you can’t even do that.” He stands up, hands shoved into the pockets of his yellow blazer. “Goodbye, Lance.”

 

Lance can’t think of anything that could make the hot tempered boy stay, so instead he watches his friend go, storming off to the ambulances.

 

When Hunk and Pidge are cleared by the paramedics, they envelop Lance into a hug upon sight. He feels his eyes sting, so he just shoves his face into Pidge’s blazer. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.” Lance can’t tell if those words are more for Keith or his friends.

 

The ride home is tense. Hunk and Lance get on first, and decide to sit in the back. Keith chooses to sit in the front with Pidge, who shoots a confused look to Hunk and Lance as he pulls her into the seat, rows from them. As the bus starts its long trek home, Lance rests his head in the crook of Hunk’s shoulder.

 

“I messed up, Hunk.”

  


 

That Monday, Lance walks by a crowd of people watching the school news on a TV hanging on the wall. He only hears _thank you, Spider-man_ before walking out of the volume’s range.

 

Hunk comes up to him in the hallway before lunch. “Dude. What’s it like being famous when nobody knows it’s you?” he whispers.

 

“Crazy,” Lance answers. “And stressful,” he adds. “Crazy stressful.” The two are silent as Lance unlocks his locker. “Hey. Has—has Keith said anything about me?” Lance knows it sounds desperate. But honestly, he _is_ desperate. Everytime he approaches Keith he mumbles _not now, Lance_ , before walking the other direction. Lance hasn’t come up with a good enough excuse to show up at his house as Spider-man without actually being hurt other than _hey, you’re currently ignoring the real me but I miss you._

 

Hunk shakes his head. “He seems really down, though. He doesn’t even laugh when Pidge shows him memes.”

  
Lance feels a twist in his gut, grabbing his textbooks and closing the locker.

 

“Do you know what you’re going to do with the Vulture?” Hunk asks.

 

“All I know is he’s stealing from Damage Control and what he takes from them is how he builds the weapons. All we gotta do is catch him.”

 

Hunk pauses. “What, right now? But we have a Spanish quiz.”

 

Lance leans in close to his friend. “Hunk, I don’t know if I’ll be at this school by next year,” he admits. “Either I end up dead because of this damn criminal or because Allura’s moving the avengers upstate. I might have to join them.”

 

Hunk scrunches his face. “Dude. You want to be a high school dropout?”

 

“I am so far beyond high school right now,” Lance mutters, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “I’m skipping. See you later, Hunk.”

  


 

On Saturday morning, Lance finds himself knocking on Keith’s window. A second later, Shiro opens it. He raises his eyebrows. “Spider-man?”

 

“I need to talk to you and Keith,” is all Lance says before crawling inside the apartment.

 

Shiro goes down the hallway to get Keith out of bed, who walks into the living room with a bed head. Upon seeing Lance, however, he seems to wake up.

 

“What are you doing here? Are you hurt?” he asks, already scanning up and down Lance’s body for visible wounds.

 

“No. I mean, not yet. Maybe.” Lance looks up to see Shiro and Keith’s concerned faces, and backtrack. “Okay, I started this badly. I’m about to go do something really dangerous, though.”

 

“Like what?” Shiro asks, sitting down on the sofa.

 

Lance jumps into an explanation of the Vulture, and how he had been selling illegal weapons to criminals and was also responsible for the elevator explosion in D.C.

 

“But I got facial recognition on one of the guys from the night I met you, Keith. His name is Aaron Davis and I interrogated him this morning in a parking garage. Apparently the Vulture is gonna be at another trade at 11Am on the Staten Island ferry. It’ll be perfect: the sellers, buyers, and the goods will all be in one place with little escape routes.”

 

“And you’re going to stop this?” Shiro questions. Lance nods.

 

“I didn’t think it’d be this dangerous, at first. But the deeper I go the more I find out. Washington is enough of an example that these guys are not to be messed with. Which is kind of why I came here: I want to know if you guys will be here in case I’m hurt when I get back.”

 

Keith’s eyes are wide as he blinks at Lance. “Of course.”

 

Lance nods, and slings his backpack off his shoulder. Setting it on the coffee table, he unzips the front pocket to grab a white envelope inside. He holds it out to Keith, making eye contact. “This,” he says quietly, “is in case I don’t make it back.”

 

“What?” Shiro croaks.

 

Lance hurriedly jumps into an explanation before the college student has a heart attack. “Both of you are amazing people and have helped me in more ways than you know. The least I can do is let you know who I really am if I die out there.”

 

Keith just stares at the white envelope in Lance’s hand as he continues. “If I don’t come here in the next twelve hours, assume I’m dead.” Shiro flinches at his blunt wording. “The intention of this letter is so you open it after I die, but I guess I can’t exactly keep you from opening it the second I leave. So, your choice.” He presses it into Keith’s hands.

 

The brothers look at Lance like he’s insane. “And you’re just trusting us with this?” Keith gapes. Lance nods. Finally, Shiro moves.

 

He stands up from the couch, pressing a firm hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Good luck, kid,” he says with a faint smile.

 

“Thanks, Shiro.”

 

Seeing as Keith won’t move, Lance moves to the window. He’s ready to step out, but feels a hand spin him around as Keith wraps his arms around Lance’s neck.

 

“You better fucking come back,” Keith warns. Lance rests his arms on the shorter boy’s waist, nodding in his shoulder. He pulls away a bit to tuck a lock of Keith’s hair behind his ears.

 

“I’m sorry for everything,” he apologizes, before putting on his bookbag and leaving out the window.

  


 

Lance sits on a rooftop, mask off. The rescue boats have just finished getting everyone off of the ferry. Lance groans. It had been a total bust. He saw the Vulture in the flesh, managed to steal his gun, but then it malfunctioned.

 

And split the entire ferry in half.

 

He thought he had everything under control; the webs held as he tried to literally sew the boat back together. But then one snapped, followed by the rest, and the ferry would have sunk if Allura hadn’t come and saved his ass.

 

Speaking of which.

 

The sound of metal landing behind him makes Lance bristle. He glances behind him to see her stepping out of the iron suit before gazing out at the bay again.

 

“Previously, on _Lance Messes Things Up_ , I tell you to stay away from this. Instead, you hacked a multimillion dollar suit so you could sneak around behind my back doing the one thing I told you _not_ to do,” she scolds.

 

“Is everyone okay?” Lance asks.

 

“No thanks to you,” she seethes.

 

Lance looks up at her. “No thanks to me?” he hops off the rooftop ledge, approaching her. “Those weapons are out there and I _tried_ to tell you about it but you didn’t listen! None of this would’ve happened if you had just _listened to me_!” Lance internally cringes at his voice cracking at the end, squinting his eyes at his mentor. “If you even cared, you’d actually be here.”

 

Allura advances towards Lance with an infuriated expression, and he steps back.

 

“I did listen, Lance. Who do you think called the FBI, huh? Do you know I was the only one who believed in you? Everyone else said that I was crazy to recruit a fifteen year-old kid.”

 

“I’m seventeen,” Lance mutters.

 

“No, this is where you zip it, alright?! The adult is talking.” Lance flinches, turning to face her sideways. “What if somebody had died tonight? Different story, right? Because that’s on _you_ ,” she spits, jabbing her finger into his chest. Her voice softens. “And if you die, I feel like that's on me. I don’t need that on my conscience.”

 

“I’m sorry—”

 

“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Lance—”

 

“I just wanted to be like you,” Lance cries. Allura’s expression doesn’t falter.

 

“Then I wanted you to be _better_.”

 

Lance breaks eye contact, looking towards his feet.

 

“I’m going to need the suit back.”

 

His head snaps up. “For how long?”

 

“Forever,” she states. “This isn’t working out.”

 

“No,” Lance protests weakly.

 

“Hand it over, Lance.”

 

The teenager backs into the ledge. “Please, you don’t understand, this is all I have—I’m nothing without this suit.”

 

Allura’s face hardens. “If you’re nothing without this suit, you shouldn’t have it.” She sighs. “God, I sound like my dad.”

 

Lance doesn’t respond. He’s smart enough to know he’s fighting a losing battle.

  


 

He arrives at his apartment in the clothes he wore this morning. He takes a deep breath before knocking on the wooden door. It immediately opens, revealing his mother. She steps back, walking away from the doorway.

 

“Lance?” he turns to face Jordan as she tackles him in a hug. Lance looks over her shoulder to see Alex, Rosalyn, and Jaime in the kitchen. The five year-old sits on the counter, observing their interaction with wide, brown eyes. Alex holds a sleeping Jaime in his arms, a worried expression on his face.

 

Jordan pulls away, cheeks wet with tears as she checks to make sure Lance was okay.

 

“I’m fine,” he whispers.

 

“I’ve been calling you all day,” his mother begins, voice cracking. Lance turns towards her. “You didn’t answer your phone. You can’t do that, _leóncito_ . Then this ferry thing happens—” she takes a shaky breath. “Jordan and I called _five_ police stations. _Cinco_. I called five of your friends. I called Hunk’s mom—”

 

“Mama, _lo siento. Estoy bien._ ”

 

“Cut the bullshit, Lance!” Everyone in the room freezes. “I know you skipped school. I know you left the hotel room in Washington. I know you sneak out of this house every night. _Eso no esta bien_. You have to tell us what’s going on!”

 

Lance pauses, eyes stinging. “I lost the Altea internship.” It hurts to lie, especially to his mother. Especially right in her face.

 

Her face immediately softened. “What?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“What happened?” Jordan asks.

 

“I thought if I worked really hard he’d see how much I wanted this, but- he-” Lance chokes, sitting down on the sofa. “Screw them,” he whispers, tears trailing down his cheeks.

 

His mother hurries to him, stroking his hair with her fingers. “It’s okay, _leóncito._ ”

 

“I’m sorry I made you worry.”

 

She kisses his head, leaning down to his eye level. “You gotta stop carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, honey.”

 

Lance nods. _If only she knew._

  


 

That night, he calls Keith using an anonymous app.

 

“Keith?”

 

“Who is this?”

 

“It’s… it’s Spider-man.”

 

Lance hears the sound of something dropping in the background before Keith speaks again. “Oh my god. Are you okay? I saw the news and they hadn’t confirmed any deaths yet but you hadn’t come back so I freaked.”

 

“Did you read the letter?” Lance asks in a soft voice.

 

“No. I opened the envelope but I couldn’t take out the letter.”

 

“Allura took my suit away,” his voice cracks. “I’m not Spider-man anymore.”

 

There’s silence on the other line for a moment. “Bullshit. You’ll always be Spider-man. You still have your powers, yeah?” Lance hums. “Then you just need a new suit. Iron Woman took the suit back but it’s not like that thing was your superhero contract. Do you still have your old suit from four months ago, before that battle in Germany?”

 

Lance chuckles weakly. “Keith, have you been cyber-stalking those youtube videos of me?”

 

“Answer the question, Spidey.”

 

“Yeah, I do.”

 

“Well, there you go. You’re still Spider-man, just with a less-cool suit. Whatever.”

 

The brunet laughs. “Alright, Keith. I’ll see you around.”

 

“Hopefully not bleeding or injured. Goodnight.”

 

“Goodnight.” Lance hangs up the call and leans back into his bed, sighing.

  


 

Two weeks pass of awkward lunches and classes with Keith. Lance hasn’t once gone out in his old Spider-man get up, only putting it on as an excuse to go see Keith. The two would hang out on his roof, sometimes, or sit in his room, lying on the floor. They would sit in silence, occasionally, but usually talked about anything and everything. Out of the five times he’s gone to Keith and Shiro’s apartment, Lance hadn’t been injured. He’s starting to run out of reasons to come over.

 

Prom is coming up, and Pidge volunteers to pick Lance up for it, since he doesn’t have a ride _or_ date. He tries not to be embarrassed by the fact that it’s his first prom and he’s dateless, getting picked up by a fourteen year-old. His mother takes a thousand pictures, like always, crooning over Lance’s hand-me-down tuxedo that Toni wore to his prom.

 

He meets Pidge at the curb by his apartment, rolling down the window from the backseat. As Lance slides into the back seat, he notices the red corsage he bought for her will contrast against her green dress greatly. _Oh well_ , Lance thinks, knowing the girl is most likely not to care.

 

“Cool dress,” he compliments.  


“Thanks. Cool tux,” she retorts.

 

She motions up to the driver. “This is my uncle, Henry.”

 

The man at the driver’s seat turns around and Lance inhales sharply. Pale, bald head, an old scar running down his jawline.

 

Lance was sitting two feet from the Vulture and he had no idea that Lance was Spider-man. Henry smiles warmly.

 

“You must be Lance. Please to meet you,” he greets, twisting his hand back to shake Lance’s.

 

The brunet finally finds his words: “Uh—hi. Nice to meet you.”

 

“You alright, Lance?” Henry asks. Lance nods, whispering a _yes_. “‘Cause you look pale.”

 

Lance nods again, breaking eye contact with the criminal. He turns to Pidge. “Uh, your corsage. I’m not your date but since you’re giving me a ride, well. Also, it’ll kind of make you look like Christmas. I didn’t know you were going to wear green. Sorry.” He hands the plastic container to her.

 

Pidge opens the box and slips it onto her wrist, clasping it in place. “Thanks, Lance. That’s really nice of you.”

 

Henry starts the car with a mutter of _what a polite young man_ , and Pidge sends Lance a look. _You okay?_ she mouths. Lance nods, jaw clamped shut. He keeps his eyes set on outside the window.

 

A few minutes into the ride, Henry asks “What you gonna do, Lance?” and Lance panics. His eyes snap the the rearview mirror, where ice blue eyes are already watching him.

 

 _Oh god does he know —_ “Pardon?”

  
“After graduation, what do you wanna do for a living?” he repeats.

 

“Oh, I’m not sure yet.”

 

Pidge smirks, the blue light from her phone shining off her face. “Don’t grill him, Henry.”

 

The man shrugs. “I’m just saying. You guys go to that school, it’s kind of like your life is planned out, right?”

 

Pidge leans forwards in her seat. “Lance has an internship with Allura Altea.”

 

Henry’s eyes widen in the mirror, and Lance stiffens. “Really, Altea? Interesting. What do you do, Lance?”

 

“Actually, I don’t intern there anymore.”

 

Pidge swivels her head around as the car stops at a red light. “Seriously?”

 

Land nods. “Yeah. Um, I decided that’s not really what I want to do.”

 

“But you got to hang out with Spider-man!”

 

“Really?” Henry marvels. “Spider-man? Wow. What’s he like?”

 

“Energetic,” he answers, blue eyes focused on the window. “He—he’s nice.”

 

Henry keeps glancing into the mirror, studying Lance’s face. “I’ve seen you around, right? Your voice sounds so familiar.”

 

_He knows he knows he knows—_

 

“He went with us to D.C., Henry. He’s captain of the swim team.”

 

“Yeah,” Lance joins. “It was really cool. Great city. Loved being with the group.”

 

Pidge raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “You were with us for like, two seconds then disappeared on your own.”

 

“No, I didn’t disappear,” Lance argues. He really hopes that his friend gets the hint and stops talking about it.

 

“Yeah, you did. You always disappear.”

 

Henry exhales, and Lance’s attention is snapped back to him. “It’s terrible what happened in D.C., though. You must’ve been really scared. I bet you were glad when your old pal Spider-man showed up, huh?”

 

Lance’s mouth feels like sandpaper. He can’t think, afraid of every word that’ll come up.

 

“I actually didn’t go up. I saw it off on the ground with our friend, Keith. He’s afraid of heights and I didn’t want to leave him alone.” Henry stares at Lance through the mirror. The Cuban boy’s fingernails dig into his palms. “We’re very lucky that he was there that day.”

 

The two enter a stare-off for a few seconds, before Pidge interrupts.

 

“Henry, green light.”

 

Icy blue eyes drift away from the mirror as the man steps on the gas, accelerating the car. They arrive at the school a little bit later, and Lance is ready to get out of the car when Henry holds his hand up.

 

“Katie, how about you go on in? I wanna give Lance the whole _dad talk_ since Sam can’t,” he declares innocently. Lance grips the hem of his trousers, shooting a look towards Pidge.

 

“Alright. Have a nice flight, Henry.”

 

“Flight?” Lance asks.

 

Henry nods. “I’m leaving town for a couple days after this, that’s why I offered to drive you guys to the dance. Bye, Katie.”

 

Katie nods and gets out of the car, telling Lance that she’ll be with Keith and Hunk inside.

 

The second she’s out of sight, Lance turns forward to face the barrel of a gun two inches from his nose.

 

“Does she know?”

 

“Know what?” Lance gulps.

 

Henry smiles maliciously, any sign of the kind uncle gone. “Good. So she doesn’t. Never tell your closest. I admire that; got a few secrets of my own. Lance, nothing is more important than family. You saved my niece’s life. I appreciated that. Which is why I’m gonna give you a second chance: walk into that dance and never intervene with my business again. ‘Cause if you do, I’ll kill you. And everybody you love.” Lance’s mind flashes to his mom, siblings, Hunk, _Keith_ , Pidge, Shiro- “I’ll kill you dead. That’s what I’ll do to protect my family, Lance. You understand?”

 

Lance is silent.

 

“Hey. I just saved your life. Now, what do you say?”

 

Lance feels like he just swallowed a bucket of sand. “Thanks.”

 

The grin appears back on the criminal’s face. “You’re welcome. Now go show my niece a good time.”

 

Lance gets out of the car in a daze. The music booming out of the school gymnasium sounds like he’s underwater, and it takes all he can not to vomit on the stairs while walking through the front doors. He can see Hunk, Pidge, and Keith across the dance floor, waving at him. Keith is wearing a black suit with a red shirt underneath. Hunk has a yellow bowtie. Lance takes a shaky breath before pulling back the door, stepping into the gym.

 

The theme must’ve been _Magic Carpet Ride_ or some shit because the entire room smells like bad Indian food and cheap ‘silk’ sheets hang from the ceiling. Lance has to get past a couple students who smell like they had been drinking something other than the punch to reach his friends, and by the time he did he felt nauseous again.

 

“Hey!” Pidge shouts over the music. “What did Henry tell you?”

 

“Nothing much,” he responds monotonously. “Just the basic stuff.”

 

Lance feels like he’s drowning. He’s at the bottom of the goddamn East river again with a steel ball chained to his ankle. He can’t breathe and there’s no way to get out.

 

A hand grips Lance’s wrist, and his eyes snap to violet.

 

“Lance, I wanted to talk to you,” Keith announces, side-eyeing Hunk and Pidge. The two take the hint and give off an excuse of wanting food, sending winks at the boys before leaving.

 

“Lance—”

 

“I’m sorry,” Lance chokes out, gazing at those eyes that he’s thought of _constantly_ for the past three months. “You don’t deserve this. I gotta go.”

 

His feet move before his brain does, running off the dance floor before Keith can say anything else. He sprints into the hallway, kicking past stray blue and yellow balloons scattered across the floor as he slips off his tie. He gets to his locker by the time he strips from his jacket and shoes.

 

Within seconds, he has his old super suit on that he kept in his locker. Lance runs out the bus garage door, pushing the heavy thing open, escaping into the crisp night air. He barely makes it three feet when a sudden flash of blue stops him in his tracks as his limbs go numb and he’s slammed into a bus.

 

Lance looks up to see a man walk up. He’s wearing a hoodie and jeans, but no other identifying characteristics other than the fact that he was bald.

 

“He gave you a choice,” the thug states. “You chose wrong.”

 

Lance blinks, dazed from his fall. “What the hell?”

 

“What’s with the crappy costume?” he laughs, taking in the old outfit.

 

Lance’s eyes glance across the parking lot, where his web shooters landed. He scrambles up to grab them, but the man shoots a bus, sending it spinning towards him.

 

The bus hits him hard, and Lance feels a rib crack as he goes flying into the windows of an adjacent bus. The glass shatters onto him after he lands. Breathing hurts, and Lance gazes up at the attacker as he kicks his web shooters out of the way. All Lance can do is close his eyes when another shot of the numbing gun is aimed at him. He crashes into a windshield, landing on a leather seat with a _smack_.

 

The world suddenly turns upside-down, and he lands on the roof. His vision is spinning, but he guesses that the thug flipped the bus. Kicking out the emergency door, Lance escapes and rolls onto the ground.

 

“Why did he send you here?” he croaks, watching as the man walked up.

 

He holds up the gun, cocking it. “Guess you’ll never know.” He leans down to aim it, but before he can shoot, a web latches onto the gun. Lance gapes at it in shock, head snapping to the end of the string.

 

Lance never would’ve thought he’d se the day where Keith saved him with his own web shooters, but as his eyes focused, he realizes the mullet was actually doing it. Still dressed in his formalwear, Keith sneers as he wrenches the gun out of the man’s hands.

 

“Nice shot!” Lance screams, crawling and grabbing his fallen web shooter on the pavement. Keith throws Lance his other one while the man is distracted by his arrival. Lance quickly slips them on before trapping the man against a bus in webs.

 

There’s a moment where Lance glances back and forth between the subdued attacker and Keith, then breaks into a grin. “I think you’re literally the sexiest I’ve ever seen you right now,” he announces.

 

Under the parking lot lights, Keith’s face blushes to an alarming shade of red. “Shut up,” he scoffs quietly. “Who was that guy?” he asks, walking up to him.

 

“Keith, you’re never going to believe this, but the Vulture is Pidge’s uncle.”

 

Keith’s face twists in confusion. “What?” he narrows his eyes at the man against the bus. “Why would you think that?”

 

Lance stares at Keith. Under the low light, he can see how long his eyelashes were. They seem to touch his cheek bones, interlacing each time he blinks. Along his nose and cheeks, small freckles sprout across his pale skin. Lance inhales sharply.

 

“Because he interrogated me on the way here, in the car with Pidge. He knows who I am.”

 

Keith’s eyebrows scrunch together, lips falling open slightly in realization. “Lance?” he whispers in question.

 

Lance smiles, taking one of Keith’s hands. “Hey, mullet. Thanks for saving me.”

 

The shorter boy blinks, eyes wide. “I feel like an idiot. I had so many hints.”

 

The brunet laughs, turning back towards the captured crony. “I have to go after him. We’ll have to talk later. I’ll answer any of your questions.”

 

“You might die.”

 

Lance nods, exhaling into the night air. “Yeah.”

 

“So—” Keith interlaces their fingers. “When I got mad at you for not being there, during D.C.—”

 

“Yeah. I was there, the whole time. Just not in the way you wanted me to be. I’m sorry for lying to you.”

 

Keith shakes his head, removing his hand from Lance’s. He lifts them up, resting his fingers at the taller’s neck. Where his mask ends.

 

“Can I?” he whispers.

 

“Yes.”

 

Lance feels Keith slide the spandex up and off of his neck, past his and over his nose. Once he could see with it off, Keith pulled the rest. His arms are resting on his shoulders past his neck now. Lance can’t seem to take his eyes off of Keith.

 

Apparently, it was likewise.

 

It’s a thing they’ll argue about one day in the future: who leaned in first, made the first move. But Keith is standing on his toes and Lance is tilting his head down and snaking his arms around Keith’s waist, lips meeting in between them.

 

It’s his first kiss and Lance is afraid he’s pressing too hard or accidentally biting him but he’s honestly just surprised they didn’t knock noses going into this. Keith’s lips are chapped and he crosses his arms behind Lance’s head, still holding that ugly, old mask.

 

Lance wishes it could last forever, but within seconds it’s over and Keith pulls away, looking at Lance with this expression he’s never seen on Keith’s face before. (Later, Keith tells him this was the moment he realized he’d fall in love with Lance.)

 

The taller rests his forehead against Keith’s. “I have to go,” he tells him.

 

Keith’s grip tightens, and he closes his eyes. Those long eyelashes tickle Lance’s skin. He doesn’t mind. “I know. I’m just afraid you won’t come back.”

 

“I will,” Lance promises. He pulls away from the other boy, taking his mask back from his long fingers. “I need you to tell Hunk to call Allura and tell her who the Vulture is. Get his computer to track my phone.”

 

Before Lance can slip on the mask, Keith fists the front of his suit, pulling the mutant down to meet his lips. He doesn’t have time to reciprocate as Keith moves back. “You better come back, McClain,” he breathes against his lips. Lance feels his face heat up. Keith lets go of his suit and he stares for a moment before nodding dumbly, sliding the mask back on.

 

“I will,” he whispers, turning away and grappling into the night.

  


 

Lance is on the road when Hunk calls.

 

“ _Lance? Where are you now?_ ” the familiar tone of his best friend’s voice makes Lance relax, hand loosening on the steering wheel.

 

“I’m driving down Buckner street! Did Keith talk to you?”

 

“ _Yeah, I’m tracking the phone right now. Since when did Keith know? Also, how are you driving right now? You don’t have a car._ ”

 

“As of ten minutes ago. I convinced Rolo to give me his car. I’m currently using his cell phone, too.”

 

A deep voice suddenly came into the call. “ _You mean you stole it?_ ”

 

“Keith! What are you doing there? Also, place better trust in me!” Lance squawks.

 

“ _Helping, obviously._ ”

 

Hunk speaks over their squabbles. “ _Your phone just passed the gamestop on Jackson Avenue. Where is it?_ ”

 

“Inside Henry’s car!” Lance responds, swerving towards Jackson Avenue. “Keith, I need you to look for Alex, Jordan, and Ms. McClain in Hunk’s phone. Text them to stay in their houses and lock the doors and windows. Lance’ll explain later.”

 

“ _Got it_.”

 

“ _Should we tell Pidge? You are chasing after her uncle, after all._ ” Hunk chimes in.

 

Lance dodges a Buick. “Yes. Keith, after you’ve sent that text, find her in the gym and bring her back to where you are. The Vulture’s men won’t hurt you two if she’s there.”

 

There’s a pause between talking. Keith sighs. “ _So you want me to use my best friend as a human shield?_ ” he asks.

 

Lance shrugs, turning down another street. “Basically, yeah.”

 

“ _Alright_.”

 

Lance suddenly hits traffic on Freelander Street and swerves while screaming at the cars to move.

 

“ _Are you okay?_ ” Hunk asks in a worried tone.

 

“Ah, don’t worry big man! It’s just I’ve never really driven before, only in parking lots!”

 

“ _WHAT?_ ” Hunk and Keith scream in unison.

 

“This is a huge step up!” Lance gasps, driving through an intersection. Cars behind him slam on the breaks, honking their horns at him.

 

“ _Okay, Keith’s left to get Pidge. Calling Allura now._ ”

 

“Where’s my phone now?” Lance asks.

 

The sound of a rolling chair is accompanied by quick typing on a screen. “ _...He’s stopped at an old industrial park in Brooklyn._ ”

 

Lance scrunches his face up, ignoring the stop sign. “What? That makes no sense. He told me he was going out of town!”

 

“ _Also, I just video called Allura, and she hung up the second I said I was with you. She was surrounded by a bunch of boxes and said that the flight leaves in nine minutes, but I have no idea which flight she’s talking about._ ”

 

Lance crosses over into Brooklyn, swerving past the suburban houses. “Oh my god—it’s moving day! He’s gonna ruin the avengers moving upstate!”

 

“ _Or he’s going to steal their stuff._ ”

 

“ _I’m back with Pidge,_ ” Keith speaks into the phone.

 

“ _Uh, hi? Why are we talking to Lance and tracking him during prom?_ ” Pidge’s voice rings through.

 

Lance takes a deep breath. At this point, what would it hurt to have one more person know? “Pidge, I know this may be hard to believe, but I’m Spider-man.” He prepares himself for screaming on the other end, but instead gets a smartass reply.

 

“ _Oh. Well, I knew that already._ ”

 

“What?!” he screeches as he swerves the car to avoid a parked Jeep.

 

“ _You called me Pidgeot when you saved me in the elevator shaft at D.C., Lance. You are the only person dumb enough to call me that._ ” And yeah, he has to admit that kind of stings.

 

“And you figured it out just from that?”

 

“ _Essentially._ ”

 

“ _Lance, the industrial park is on your right!_ ” Hunk yells across the com, and Lance makes a sharp turn.

 

“Got it! Explain everything to Pidge and get through to Allura! I might need backup.” Without saying anything else, Lance hung up the call and jumped from the convertible, moving towards the warehouse.

  


When Lance wakes up, he half-expects to awaken to the beeping of a hospital and the smells of a sterile environment. Instead, he opens his eyes to see he’s on Keith and Shiro’s couch. The sound of bacon sizzling and popping is distant, but the scent of food is strong. Lance squirms, wondering if there was something wrong with his hearing.

 

He lifts his head, eyes scanning the room. It turns out to be less empty than he originally thought: Hunk and Pidge are passed out on each other on an air mattress on the floor. The two are still dressed in the prom outfits, the expensive material rumpled to all hell. Lance chuckles, but looks down to see his naked chest.

 

“Lance?” said person looks up to see Keith standing in the doorway, a shocked expression on his face.

 

“Uh, why am I naked, and how’d I end up here?” he yawns.

 

The sudden feeling of Keith running over and tackling him in a hug pushes the air from his lungs, and Lance winces upon feeling the pressure on his ribs. “Ow, babe, I think my ribs are broken, please stop,” he whines, and Keith pulls away.

 

“Shouldn’t I be at a hospital right now?” he asks. Keith shrugs.

 

“That’s what Shiro wanted to do last night, but you refused like all the other times. You showed up here with your suit in tatters, looking like absolute shit. You have a ton of burns on your body, as well as what we’re guessing is three broken or bruised ribs. I wasn’t even home yet, and you kind of just let yourself in through the living room window with your mask off. You scared Shiro shirtless, though, because all you said was _hey, shiro! It’s me, Spider-man! Please don’t take me to a hospital. Is Keith here?_ And then passed out halfway through him putting burn cream on you. He freaked out and called us when we were still trying to contact Allura, so we all came here.”

 

Lance nods, but freezes. His face goes pale. “Oh my god, my mom is going to freak out.”

 

Keith grins. “That’s what Hunk said, so we called her too. She fell asleep before prom ended last night so she didn’t get the message until this morning.”

 

“Where is she?”

 

“In the kitchen, helping Shiro make breakfast.”

 

Lance wheezes a laugh. “Of course.” Keith then informs him that a doctor is going to come soon to check him out, requested by Allura.

 

Keith interlaces his fingers with Lance’s, violet eyes raising to meet his. “What happened last night, after you ended the call?”

 

Lance winces at the thought of it. “All I remember clearly is being in a ton of pain the entire time. At one point the Vulture had a building collapse on me. Then I took down a plane and dragged him out of the fire. It’s fuzzy after I started heading to your place, though.” He purposefully doesn’t go into details. The mere thought of being trapped under the rubble, screaming for help still gave him chills.

 

“I’m sorry, Lance,” Keith whispers, squeezing his hand. Lance smiles.

 

“It’s okay. I came back, right?”

 

Keith mirrors his smile. “Right. So: boyfriends?”

 

Lance chokes, ribs screaming in pain at his shock. “ _Keith_ , you— _you can’t just be so blunt about it!_ ”

  


 

The first day at school sucks, partially because Lance is still walking around with two bruised and one broken rib, along with a concussion. By the last bell, he just wants to sleep for a couple of years.

 

He’s held back from walking out of the front doors by the distant call of _Lance!_ down the hallway. The brunet turns to see his boyfriend jogging up to him, pressing a quick kiss to his lips upon greeting. “Guess who was just named next year’s Decathlon team captain?” he asks with a grin.

 

“No way, Keith!” Lance exclaims. “Congratulations! I’d totally hug you right now but I still have a broken rib!” His boyfriend laughs, rising up on his toes to kiss him.

 

Lance presses back enthusiastically before getting interrupted by catcalls.

 

“No swallowing each other in the hallways!” The two pull away to see Hunk and Pidge approaching. Lance grins maniacally.

 

“Hey, gremlin! How’s life from the viewpoint of a small child?”

 

Pidge narrows her eyes. “Y’know, sometimes, I really do miss Pidgeot, which says a lot. But otherwise, alright. As best as you can be when you find out your uncle sold illegal weapons to criminals only because your crime-fighting superhero friend kicked his ass and landed him in jail.”

 

The others look at her in stunned silence, unsure what to say. She laughs, shaking her head. “But seriously, guys, I’m fine. It’s hitting mom and Matt harder than me. We’re video-chatting dad tonight to tell him.”

 

Hunk nods cautiously. “Okay. That’s good. Tell Mr. Holt I said hello.”

 

“He’s talking about the one on the ISS center, by the way!” Lance cuts in. “No one cares about Mr. Holt, the chemistry student teacher that’s your _brother_.”

 

“Watch it, he has ears everywhere,” Keith warns.

 

His boyfriend was right; Lance gets a detention later that day by the smirking student teacher. He blames Pidge for tattling.

  


 

Upon arriving home, Lance certainly didn’t expect to see Allura Altea and his _mom_ having a cup of tea at the dining table, of all situations.

 

“Uh, hi?” he greets confusingly, dropping his book bag at the doorway.

 

Allura looks up. “Hi, Lance. I came downstate because I thought it’d be easier than having you come up on a school night.” She turns to his mom, plastering on a smile. “Can I talk to Lance alone, for a minute?”

 

“Of course,” his mother picks up their empty cups, going into the kitchen to wash them out. Lance hesitantly walks into the dining room.

 

“Allura, I—”

 

“Screwed up hard. Yes, you did,” Allura finishes for him, lowering her eyes. “But then you did the right thing. I was wrong about you, Lance. Which is why,” she pulls a bag out from under the table, taking out a familiar red suit. The air leaves Lance’s lungs. “—I’m giving you this back. I’ll introduce Spider-man to the world as the newest member of the avengers. You’ll live upstate at our new HQ, have your own quarters, you’ll fit right in.”

 

Lance stares at her, flabbergasted. It was so much to take in at once, which could essentially be a summary of the past four months. “Allura, I—” he stops. He glances into the kitchen to see his mom trying to act like she wasn’t watching with bated breath. “Thank you, Allura. But… I’m going to have to pass.”

 

Allura’s eyebrows shot to her hairline. “What?”

 

“I’d rather stay on the ground. You know, friendly-neighborhood Spider-man,” Lance hastily explains.

 

“You’re turning me down?”

 

Lance nods slowly. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

 

Allura leans onto the table, cupping her jaw with her hands. “Why?”

 

He laughs. “My family’s here. My friends are here. My boyfriend’s here. I’m the captain of my school’s swim team and,- honestly?- I think I could get a scholarship to a university with it.”

 

“You’re gay?”

 

Lance smiles. “The answer is no, Allura. I don’t think a seventeen year-old should be fighting in the avengers, anyway. It just took a massive beat-down for me to realize that.”

  
Allura cocks her head sideways. “Alright. But even a friendly-neighborhood Spider-man will need a suit. Stay in contact, Lance.” She stands up, grabbing her phone off the table. “I’ll see you again.”

 

The teenager blinks as she leave his apartment, leaving the multimillion dollar suit behind. “Uh, sure. Bye, Allura.”

  


 

Keith’s giggles echo across the rooftops. Lance thinks it’s his favorite sound in the world. “So she comes all the way here to invite you to join the avengers and you say _I’m gonna have to pass_?!”

 

Lance laughs along with him, chest sore from the strain on his ribs. The two were laying on the roof of Keith’s apartment complex, something the younger boy had said was _probably not allowed_. It was 9PM and the stars were already out, having turned dark within minutes. Of course, considering they lived in New York City, the most stars they could see were very small specks scattered across the black sky.

 

“It was a fast question, I didn’t have time to pick out my words!” Lance defends himself.

 

“No, you just have to brain-to-mouth filter,” Keith revises. Lance scoffs, turning the other way. When Keith leaned around him, he saw the swimmer was pouting. “You are actually pathetic.”

  
“You are actually _rude_. Insult me again and I’ll drop you off on the top of the Empire State Building.”

 

Keith springs up, glaring at his boyfriend. “Don’t you dare,” he threatens, knowing the Cuban boy was completely serious. Lance shrugs, lying back down and pulling Keith to follow.

 

“Don’t you think it’s kind of ironic how Spider-man, the guy who slingshots himself through the sky on a daily basis, is dating someone who’s afraid of heights?” Lance proposed in a quiet voice.

 

“Mm, a little bit,” Keith agrees, leaning up to press a kiss to his boyfriend’s jaw. He pauses, pulling out his phone to look at the time. “Uh, Lance, you missed your curfew.”

 

The tan boy tenses, glancing at the clock before jumping up, knocking Keith out of the way. “ _Shit!_ ” he screeches, much to the other’s enjoyment. Lance scrambles around the rooftop, finding his phone and suit. He steps into the feet of the spandex, pressing the spider emblem for it to fit accordingly. He pulls the mask over his head haphazardly. “Thanks for stargazing with me babe, gotta run-”

 

The mutant is cut off by Keith rolling up the edges of his mask, pressing a kiss to his lips. He pulls away with a smile, eyes crinkling. “Now get out of here, you arachnid.”

 

The last thing Lance sees before leaping off the rooftop is his boyfriend’s smile, making his way towards the stairwell.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave me a comment because I thrive on attention alright  
> But like,.. go easy on the constructive criticism please my heart can't take it. This is my first voltron AND klance fic.
> 
> Check me out on instagram, I post voltron memes and give updates on my current WIPs. instagram.com/raspb3r.ries
> 
> Okay bye plebs leave a kudos


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